


Tormentor, Mentor, Pleaser, Appeaser

by DarkFairytale



Series: Mentor Tormentor [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bloodplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, Fluff, Hallucinations, Jealousy, Love Bites, M/M, Manipulation, Murder Husbands, Murder husbands having a merry time murdering, Nightmares, Possessive Behavior, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Strangulation, and being husbands, particularly when you're cannibals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:11:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know, you sometimes still look at me like you want to eat me alive."</p><p>"I always want to devour you. But I have learned that there are far more pleasurable ways to gain a taste of you." Hannibal's tongue drags across Will's skin. "And you do taste delicious, Will."</p><p>Hannibal and Will learn to live, love and take lives with each other following their dance with the Dragon.</p><p>[Can be read as a standalone, or as a part of the Mentor Tormentor series].</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, this story is an excuse for me to write down as many of my post-Season 3 murder husband headcanons and favourite associated Hannigram tropes/kinks as possible. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> This story is a standalone, but can also be read as part of my ongoing Mentor Tormentor post-S3 verse (more info in notes at end).

 Francis Dolarhyde had wings of blood.  He never got to fly.

Will and Hannibal did not have wings, but for a few moments at least they had known what it was like to touch a black-blood moon, like bloodied, twisted Icarus’, and fall back to Earth and plunge into the deep.

Will looks down over the side of the cliff and it is higher than he remembers. The waves are rough and rolling down below, crashing mercilessly against the rocks.

_It’d be enough to kill a man_ , Will thinks.

_But it didn’t, did it?_ A voice replies in his ear.

Will flinches, wobbling dangerously on the edge. “Hannibal?” He asks, whipping his head to the side. But it is not Hannibal’s voice. Hannibal is not there. Will is all alone in the dark, the cliff crumbling away under his feet. Why is Hannibal not here? Will can’t live with him. He can’t live without him. He can’t fall without him.

“Hannibal?” Will calls again.

_Maybe he’s down there._ The voice whispers. _Maybe you should join him._

_I’ll drown._ Will answers. _I can’t fly._

_Can’t you? Aren’t those wings on your back?_

Will reaches a hand over his shoulder, the movement forcing more blood to seep from his stab wound and slowly down his front. It doesn’t look black in the moonlight anymore. It is bright and stark and dragon red. His hand touches thick leathery skin stretched tight between bones that protrude from his shoulder blades. He is used to the antlers of a stag, not the wings of a dragon. He sharply retracts his hand with a hiss.

What is he becoming?

_Do you see?_ The voice asks. _Do you see?_

_I don’t._ Will argues, voice weak and lost on the wind. _I can’t see. I can’t fly._

_You can. And you will..._

“Will.” A voice shatters through the wind and the cliff under his feet gives way a little more.

“No!” Will shouts, teetering right on the edge. He flails, hands grasping in the air. The wings did not lift Francis Dolarhyde from his fate at the hands and teeth of greater predators; they would not carry Will over the sea.

“Will.” The voice says again. The voice is calm but the storm is raging and Will startles again, he tips forward…

And nothing happens.

Will opens waking eyes and can suddenly see again.

It isn’t moonlight he can see anymore; it’s a ceiling light above his head. He’s not on the edge of the cliff. He looks down. He is, however, on the very edge of the top step of the staircase.

But he isn’t falling. He is being held in place.

There is only one person in the world that could draw him back from the dark, despite having enticed him to it in the first place. There is only one person left in the world that knows he is still alive, with which to know to save him, or not.

“Hannibal.” He says.

“Hello, Will.” Hannibal’s sleep-heavy voice speaks into his ear, husky and gentle.

Hannibal’s broad arms are wrapped securely around Will’s waist and torso, his chest solid and grounding at Will’s back.

“I woke you.” Will states, lacing the words with apology.

“You called my name.” Hannibal says. It takes Will a moment to detect the quiet concern in Hannibal’s voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“If you had not called, you may have fallen. I think we have both done plenty of falling from great heights of late.” There is mocking accusation there. Will can hear it. Hannibal knows as well as Will that Will had thrown them both off that cliff with absolutely no idea as to whether they would live or die; whether he had _wanted_ them to live or die.

It has been three weeks since, both of them still healing from the brink of death. Will’s decision had been made when they had both survived. Many of Will’s questions had been answered for him that night; how good it was to hunt with Hannibal, to see the beauty in it; to understand the love in Hannibal’s eyes and whether it could be reflected; to whether he should kill Hannibal, or kill with Hannibal.

Despite the revelations the pair of them have clearly made separately, it has been much danced around as a topic of discussion. They both survived, and that was that. They could read each other well enough now to know better than to question the whys and hows of their complicated relationship. Will had apologised the second night he redressed Hannibal’s wound - a quick but sincere ‘I’m sorry’ - his eyes focused on his work rather than to make eye contact - but when he had looked up, he had seen the understanding and forgiveness in Hannibal’s eyes, and that had been enough.

So Will does not rise to the jibe and simply relaxes into Hannibal’s hold, allowing Hannibal to edge them backwards. Hannibal also succeeds in drawing Will closer to his body. It must put pressure on Hannibal’s healing wound but he appears not to care and does not push Will away once he is pressed against him.

“I haven’t slept walked in a long time.” Will confesses, his heart still hammering in his chest from the shock of the wake and the adrenaline of the dream. Hannibal must be able to feel it underneath his palm.

“The chase and destruction of the dragon has reawakened your empathy.” Hannibal surmises, voice a soothing presence, breath warm and distracting on Will’s neck, stirring in his hair. “You are still trapped in the workings of the dragon’s mind.”

“I want him gone.” Will breaths out, hands dropping instinctively to clasp at Hannibal’s arms where they still rest around him. “I don’t want to see him.”

“What do you want to see?” Hannibal asks him, and Will knows Hannibal is fishing. Hannibal knows that Will knows.

Will makes him wait, running fingers down Hannibal’s strong forearm before turning in the circle of Hannibal’s arms. He and Hannibal have not been this close since the top of the cliff before the fall. It has been three weeks of touch for the sake of care of injury, and aside from Hannibal’s usual tactile manner, they have not strayed close together beyond that. Will has actually found himself being a little disappointed by this. He knows Hannibal loves him. He does not need any more confirmation from others; from Bedelia or anybody else. He has seen it now. He sees it clear and he understands it now. It is him that is the problem, he supposes. It usually is. And he is not sure how to go about acting on these new revelations; these old and deep-rooted feelings that have only just pierced the surface and made themselves known.

Will looks up at Hannibal, and Hannibal looks down at him, eyes dark and glistening in the dimmed light. Will sees everything in them now; every emotion. A bloodied dance with a dragon can apparently do that for you.

“I want to see _you_.” Will says. It comes out raw and honest, more so maybe than Will intended.

The way Hannibal’s arms tighten a fraction, drawing Will a little closer to him, indicates that he is satisfied with Will’s answer.

“I am here for you to see.” Hannibal responds finally, his gaze so heavy on Will’s that Will breaks it part way through, unable to hold it for long. “And you do not have to be alone.” Hannibal continues, ducking his head to attempt to capture Will’s eyes again. Will allows him to succeed. “In fact, if you are resuming your sleepwalking habits and are going to frequenting the edge of the stairs, I would suggest that you not sleep alone for the time being.”

Will starts, opening his mouth and closing it again. He does not know what to say. For all his new revelations of feelings for Hannibal and his frustrated notice of the lack of action made on Hannibal’s part, he does not immediately spring at the opportunity to change the situation. If Will had been fishing, he would have tugged the line as soon as he had received an opportunity – a bite – and reeled it straight in, but this is a human being and not a fish and he flounders. He has always been a little awkward and uncertain when it comes to knowing he is wanted; and for taking what he wants, and more often than not his hesitancy loses him his chances to change it.

Hannibal’s arms loosen a little. He looks disappointed for a fraction of a second, before it is gone again. “You do not have to sleep in my bed, Will, I am merely suggesting that we stay in the same room. We can move both beds into one room, or if you do not wish to do that we could…”

“No.” Will cuts in. He knows Hannibal dislikes interruption, but Will thinks, under this circumstance, that he will be forgiven. “No, I think it’s a good idea.” He glances back at the stairs, hesitates a little longer. “At least until we know that I’m not going to go wandering around the house.”

Hannibal rewards him a smile, soft and rare; not a hint of smugness or danger behind it, two things that Will has actually begun to miss in the weeks of half-conversation about the real world, and walking on eggshells around each other in their own closed off world. There is acceptance about the night on the cliff, yes, but Will knows Hannibal is still unsure if Will really wants to be here, and Will has been asking himself the very same question, and they won’t be happy in their shared space until Will’s decision is final. And the fact that Will doubts that Hannibal will be able to let him go completely if Will _did_ decide to leave, has made Will take even longer in making up his mind either way. He knows Hannibal will wait for him; he has waited years after all. So, for now, he will give Hannibal this.

“I shall see to moving your bed.” Hannibal says, his arms unwinding from Will’s body.

“No,” Will catches Hannibal’s wrist. “There’s no need. I will share with you if the offer still stands.”

Hannibal’s smile reaches his eyes and Will feels a new and increasingly familiar warmth in his belly. “That offer is always open to you, Will.” He begins to walk towards his bedroom, and Will, his hand still enclosed around Hannibal’s arm, allows himself to be led.

The bed is large; space enough for there to be a person-width between them if they chose it. And tonight, Will chooses it, at least until his mind is made, and he knows it will not take much longer now, if he keeps needing – wanting – Hannibal so close and to keep looking at him the way that he has been.

He curls up on his side of the bed, his back to Hannibal, and Hannibal does not comment on it. Will thinks that he feels the light trace of fingers ghost down the top of his spine for a moment, before he hears Hannibal say, “Goodnight Will.”

“Goodnight Hannibal.” He responds.

It takes him a while to fall asleep. He listens to Hannibal’s even breaths until he does. He does not wander again during the night. And he does not dream of dragons. He dreams of antlers brushing the pillow beside him, and he actually feels comforted by it.

*

Will wakes earlier than usual. He feels refreshed in a way he hasn’t since some of the last nights he shared with Molly. He lies there for a moment, wondering whether the thought of no longer having Molly lying beside him saddens him or not. It is slightly confusing to him that he is not as upset by that notion as he feels he should be.  He turns his head on the pillow to look at his new bed mate.

Hannibal is still asleep. His face is streaked by early morning light spilling in between the gap in the curtains, dust motes lingering on the air. Will watches the play of light and shadows on Hannibal’s sharp cheekbones, and wonders just when he became attracted to his ex-tormentor. His mentor, now, he supposes. Was it when he had seen the beauty of him up on that clifftop, or was it years before, when Hannibal first smiled at him, or when he followed Hannibal all the way to Italy, or the amount of strength it took him not to visit Hannibal, despite knowing exactly where he was. He had found himself yearning to see Hannibal, to let Hannibal win the little game of will that they had ongoing during that time, but he had remained stubborn. Until Hannibal had won, in the end, he supposed. The timing of the Red Dragon was a perfect way for Hannibal to draw Will back. It had been inevitable really, like a fly to a light. Fireflies, like the one Will created and hung up in Hannibal’s childhood home.

Will allows himself to stare for a little while, taking in the details of Hannibal’s handsome face, and how his hair is longer now and, whilst un-styled, falls over his forehead. He slowly lifts a hand out from under the duvet and carefully lets it hover just over Hannibal’s cheek, the barest brush of touch, like he is sure Hannibal had done to his spine the night before. They had been through much, the pair of them. Always playing their games. For all that Will had played, Hannibal had always, always come out on top. But things were different now; for once, Will does not know if Hannibal is playing any games with him anymore.

Will retracts his hand, a moment before Hannibal’s eyes flutter open. They fix on him almost immediately, and Will suspects Hannibal has been awake for longer than he appeared.

“Morning.” Will offers, a little sheepish, tucking his hand back beneath the covers.

“Good morning.” Hannibal responds. His smile is lazy and flashes his teeth. He looks so relaxed and at ease, and Will does not think he has ever seen Hannibal quite like this before. He realises he wants to see more of it. And he feels himself fall a little further. He buries himself into the pillows.

“How did you sleep?” Hannibal asks him. His voice lilts with his accent, stronger in waking.

“Well.” Will finds himself admitting truthfully.

Hannibal’s smile softens slightly, “Good.” He begins to sit up. “Would you like breakfast?”

Will almost finds himself asking Hannibal to stay a little longer, but instead he says “Yes, please.” to see Hannibal’s eyes gleam at him saying ‘please’, and then to watch him climb out of bed.

*

Their day is very norm to the  routine that they have established in the past couple of weeks; Hannibal cooking; Will helping to prepare the food and set the table (Hannibal is teaching him how to do it properly now, in preparation, Will assumes, for their first ‘real’ meal together, and Will is not sure whether he should be anticipating another hunt with Hannibal as eagerly as he is); reading (and drawing, in Hannibal’s case); checking the news stations, which are still reporting on their demise, and on the ever-complimentary reports of Freddie Lounds, who has begun lamenting the pair of them with reference to classic tragedies (Romeo and Juliet ‘a pair of star-cross’d [dangerous, disturbed cannibalistic serial-killer] lovers take their life’ and Rose and Jack ‘My heart will go on, if you don’t eat it first’ etcetera etcetera…)

The evenings come around quicker each time Will realises, the more accustomed and comfortable he becomes to Hannibal’s almost constant company. As much as Will misses his dogs, and, on a surprisingly lesser note, Molly and Wally, Will finds Hannibal’s company to be as stimulating and serene as it was in the early days.

That evening, Will does not even bother retiring to his own room. He sees no point, as it is inevitable that he will go wandering, or at least find himself unable to sleep for waking nightmares. Besides, it would be rude to accept Hannibal one night and reject him the next, particularly when the night before had been the best night’s sleep Will had had in the last three weeks.

Will hovers near the bedroom door until Hannibal welcomes him in. Whilst Hannibal is in the bathroom, Will strips down and climbs into bed wearing a white t-shirt and grey boxer shorts. Hannibal emerges from the bathroom. He sends Will a smile and Will finds it difficult not to let his eyes drop to the towel wrapped loosely around Hannibal’s hips. It is still strange to him, seeing Hannibal in a state of undress. Not unpleasant of course, quite the contrary, just something he is not used to.

“Will,” Hannibal says after a minute or two of drying his hair, “Would you feel uncomfortable if I chose not to wear a shirt to sleep?”

It was Hannibal’s bed. It was Hannibal’s safe house. Will was really in no position to refuse, but Hannibal was giving him the choice anyway, forever courteous.

“No.” Will manages, and averts his eyes as Hannibal drops the towel and pulls on a pair of striped pyjama pants that probably cost more than any item of Will’s old wardrobe (Will had fallen into the sea with only the clothes he wore, and Hannibal already seems to be taking great pleasure in replenishing Will’s wardrobe one expensive item at a time). When Hannibal approaches the bed, Will’s eyes do drop, to the bullet wound in Hannibal’s side. Will instinctively reaches a tentative hand out toward him as he gets close enough, but drops it, “How is it?” He asks, “It looks better.”

Hannibal inspects it himself, “I think it is healing nicely.” It is Hannibal’s turn to hold out a hand, but unlike Will, he allows himself to touch. Hannibal places careful fingers on Will’s chin and lifts his head up a little so that Hannibal can see his cheek. “Your scars are also healing pleasingly.”

Will’s hand shoots instinctively up to the scar, bumping into Hannibal’s along the way. “The dragon has disfigured me.”

Hannibal frowns immediately. “He has taken nothing from you.”

“Hasn’t he?” Will’s fingers graze lightly over the healing wound on his cheek. It is still raised and tender, and although Will has never really cared much for how he looks, he hates the mark the dragon has left. Hannibal has told him that although it will scar, it will fade a little over time. At the present however, it is painful and it irks him. It hurts him when he tries to smile, which he finds he is doing increasingly often in Hannibal’s company.

Hannibal’s larger hand stops Will’s in its path. He encircles Will’s fingers, and raises them to his lips, where he presses a chaste kiss to Will’s knuckles. “You are still striking, Will, and the scars you bear do not take from you; they make you stronger and more enchanting. They tell a story of you.”

Will is doubtful, but Hannibal says it with such sincere conviction that Will does not argue further. He takes his hand back from Hannibal’s and shifts back to his side of the bed, leaving plenty of room for Hannibal and a gap between them.

Hannibal climbs into bed without comment on Will’s maintaining of distance, and lies facing Will, propped up on one elbow. He reaches out to Will and stops abruptly before his hand can meet Will’s head. Will watches the hand, and Hannibal watches him, waiting for permission. Will gives a tiny nod, and Hannibal rewards him by stroking a hand through his hair, once, twice, thrice, and Will feels himself drift away.

*

Will lurches awake with wild eyes and a wilder heart, gasping and shuddering uncontrollably. His limbs would be flailing if not for, he suddenly realises, Hannibal holding him and shushing him, stroking his sweat-damp hair. Will clings to Hannibal’s arm, dragging in breaths and caught between the swirls of the dark dream and the reality of his dark waking. He grounds himself in Hannibal’s soothing hand, and the words whispered in his ear; “You are here with me. You are alright, Will, I’ve got you.”

 “Hannibal,” Will stutters out. He still feels confused, caught within the grips of his unreality. He still feels afraid. “I think I’m shattering.” He panics.

“Shattering?” Hannibal prods, voice controlled but clearly curious.

“Like a teacup.” Will’s words end in a whine, lost to a memory of the dream in which he hit the floor in Hannibal’s Baltimore kitchen, and he shattered into a thousand pieces, “Like…” he lifts a hand to the deep wound on his cheek, then up to the straight, precise line across his forehead, “The cracks are showing.” His other hand touches first his left, then right shoulder, and then strays down to his belly, where his secret smile smiles. He is relieved when he can’t feel blood spilling out through his fingers and he isn’t desperately attempting to keep his life inside of him. “The cracks are showing.” He repeats. They are no longer gaping wounds, but he is beginning to fracture.

“No, Will, no.” Hannibal catches his wrists, before he feels Hannibal sit up against the headboard, and finds himself rearranged until he is gathered in Hannibal’s lap, his head tucked under his chin, and Hannibal’s strong arms are wrapped around Will’s shaking form. He is rocking them both a little, and Will is so relieved with the confirmation that he isn’t breaking, and so comforted in Hannibal’s touch and words, that he cannot find it within himself to feel embarrassed. In fact, he feels safe in Hannibal’s arms, tucked into his chest.

“Your mind was distorting the conversation we had before sleep.” Hannibal explains, his voice a low hum in Will’s ear. “About the scars, that is all Will.” A hand traces Will’s forehead, his cheek, one of his shoulders through the t-shirt. “You are all pieced together.”

“Not shattered.” Will states, trying to come to terms with it now that he was gaining his full awareness. “Remade.”

“Remade.” Hannibal agrees.

“By you.” Will says. “You have remade me.” Will’s hand follows the path Hannibal’s hand took, but only lingers over the scars made by Hannibal himself. Not by the Great Red Dragon, not by Chiyoh, and not by Jack Crawford. Just Hannibal Lecter. “You did.”

“I suppose I did, in a way.” Hannibal’s words are breathed into Will’s ear, and Will thinks he feels Hannibal stiffen slightly with arousal at Will’s statement. Will, in the dead of night and saved from his subconscious, does not shy away from this. Instead, he finds one of Hannibal’s wrists, and pulls it to the bottom of his t-shirt, until Hannibal’s hand rests under the material, on the scar across Will’s stomach that Hannibal left there. He imagines Hannibal is holding together the wound that he made, just like Hannibal broke him down and built him back up. Hannibal’s breath hitches. His thumb runs back and forth over the raised line and Will shivers in Hannibal’s hold. It is the first time Hannibal has touched it; and he is only the third person besides Will and Molly that has touched it since Will was released from the hospital, and even then Will had not let Molly touch him there for long. It was something that was his and Hannibal’s. Deadly, dreadful and theirs. Hannibal’s permanent mark on him.

He feels Hannibal breath in the scent of his hair, and whilst Hannibal seems content, it could not be entirely pleasant with how sweaty Will is. It suddenly reminds Will how sticky and prickly he feels.

“This is why I didn’t want to share.” Will admits, coming back to himself and slowly extracting himself from Hannibal’s grip. Hannibal’s hand withdraws from Will’s stomach at a pace that betrays its reluctance to move. “I have woken you, again. I’m always restless. I’m not a good bed fellow.” He sits beside Hannibal, rather than on top of him, similarly propped up against the pillows. He scrubs the heels of his hands over his eyes, hoping to rid himself of the images still dancing within his eyelids.

Hannibal clucks his tongue and reaches up to gently prise Will’s hands away from his face. “I cannot judge you as a bed fellow after only one night.”

Will lets out a bitter laugh, “Well, you’re stuck with me for many more than one. So I hope you’re prepared.”

Will does not miss the small, pleased smile that graces Hannibal’s lips in the dark. “I am more than content to be ‘stuck’ with you, Will.” Hannibal shifts down the mattress until he is lying down again, dark eyes looking up at Will. “I believe I have made that clear.”

“Yes.” Will agrees. He wishes to put voice to his own secret contentment to be under house-arrest with Hannibal, but finds himself failing. But then, how did the old saying go? That actions speak louder than words? So instead, emboldened by Hannibal’s reactions to him and his enjoyment of those reactions, he pulls his damp t-shirt over his head and drops it onto the floor. He feels Hannibal’s eyes track the movement closely, and when he looks back, Hannibal is watching him with a curious hunger.

“May I?” Will gestures lamely to Hannibal’s side of the bed, and Hannibal responds by pulling back the covers.

“Of course.”

Will scoots over a little, and lies down, coming to rest close to Hannibal’s side. The thrill of skin on skin is warm and electrifying. Will carefully lays his head on Hannibal’s bare chest, almost mirroring the positions they held just before the fall. Will hears the thump of Hannibal’s heart under his ear and the soft happy sigh that escapes Hannibal, whether under his permission or not. Will wonders if this is a different kind of falling. It feels like it is. Will slides an arm around Hannibal’s middle, mindful of the gunshot wound, and settles. Hannibal keeps his arms resolutely by his sides, but Will can sense his want to touch. “Is this ok?” Will asks.

“I think you know that it is.”

Will hums his assent. He does know. And he knows it is selfish of him to do this to Hannibal without allowing Hannibal to have him the way that Hannibal wants, but he also feels slight satisfaction of having this control over Hannibal for a change. It was always rare for Will to hold any sort of advantage over Hannibal. “You can hold me, if you want to.”

Hannibal’s hands immediately rise to run down the length of Will’s back. Will arches into it contentedly and feels himself drifting off.

“Would this be enough for you?” Will asks Hannibal sleepily, curling his fingers through the hair on Hannibal’s chest. “If this was all I ever offered you?”

He feels Hannibal’s chest constrict under his cheek. “It would be terribly cruel of you to tease me so.” Nails dig suddenly into the hollow of Will’s back. “And although it would have to be enough, I would always wish to have all of you.” Hannibal’s statement is matter-of-fact, but Will can hear longing there, and resignation that he cannot take what he wants. The sharp pain of nails recedes and the stroking is resumed, up and down Will’s spine.

“You wish to have all of me.” Will repeats, not daring to look up at Hannibal’s face. He knows he rests on the chest of a creature far stronger and more dangerous than he. He has not forgotten what Hannibal is. He has just learned to love it. “But what if I gave you all of me? What would you want of me then?”

He knows Hannibal. He knows Hannibal is always hungry. Would Hannibal consume him, mind, soul then body? Would he consume him when Will had no more left to give him but his flesh? Would Hannibal choose to take Will’s heart, once he had captured it entirely? Hannibal however, says none of these things.

He simply says, “I would want to keep you forever.”

And Will can hear the promise in his words. He does not know how Hannibal contextualises ‘keeping’ and ‘forever’. He does find, however, that the new, powerful part of him that sees the world Hannibal lives in as beautiful is more than tempted to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

For all that Hannibal could play Will Graham like a harp, and in the early days enjoyed dancing him around like a favoured wooden puppet, it was also a regular occurrence that Will would take Hannibal completely by surprise. And as recent events would suggest, Will was now the one pulling strings of his own.

It has been eight nights since Hannibal discovered Will standing and muttering to himself at the top of the stairs, and seven nights since Will laid his head on Hannibal’s chest and asked him how content Hannibal would be if this was all they ever were. Hannibal had answered truthfully; that he would always want Will in his entirety, but Will seems content with how things are, and Hannibal has been determined since the fall that he will not push Will further in terms of their intimacy, or his becoming, and that he will wait for Will to come to him.

Will has not yet come to him. He will, in the end, Hannibal is fairly certain, but for now Will knows he has a power over Hannibal, and seems more than satisfied on winding Hannibal up and up and then letting him go. It still surprises and pleases Hannibal how malicious Will can be sometimes, and so he does not mind Will keeping him tantalizingly close but not enough to truly have him, just to see glimpses of the Will Graham that Hannibal has wanted to see for years.

Besides, from three years of no word from Will at all, to be living with him and sharing a bed with him in such a short matter of time, Hannibal should be celebrating. But Hannibal always wants more of a delightful delicacy once he has had a taste of it.

“This is delicious, Hannibal.” Will tells him as he takes a bite of another neat forkful of Hannibal’s latest dish.

This is another issue Hannibal does not know how to approach without scaring Will away. Hannibal has always been aware that it is violence that entices Will’s darker side, and not the following consumption and reflection of a hunt well done. Hannibal is at odds as to when to broach the subject of the pair of them hunting again. He has allowed for the healing of their wounds, but when they are both back to full health, Hannibal has no reason not to continue doing what he has always done. Will would not be here with Hannibal if he did not accept what Hannibal is and what the pair of them have achieved together, so Hannibal assumes that Will will partake in the hunt, and may one day come around to the victorious meal. But until the day he decides to bring this discussion to the table – quite literally – Hannibal has been cooking meals with produce sans human meat.

Although Hannibal has his preferences of meat, well ingrained and perfected by now, the satisfaction he feels at Will eating a full plate and complimenting it is almost worth the avoidance of cooking homo sapien for the time being.

“I am pleased you are enjoying it Will.” Hannibal smiles at him. Will has improved his table etiquette enormously since living with Hannibal, and although Hannibal is unsure whether this is from influence of Hannibal or the reflective action of an empath, it is pleasing nevertheless.

Will returns the smile, lips having just closed around more food, and his eyes are bright and happy in a way Hannibal has only just become accustomed to seeing on a regular basis.

He is enjoying making Will happy for a change, after years of enjoying twisting the strings tight and pulling on them sharply, and making Will confused and upset and angry just to watch what happened next.

“It is good to see you eat a full meal.” Hannibal remarks.

Will’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he laughs. “Yes, well, I’ve become accustomed to eating a little more now, with having routine meals with…” he trails off. The smile fades. He glances up at Hannibal.

He was going to say with Molly and Wally. Hannibal hates that Will attempted to start a family away from him - that he had given himself to others - whilst Hannibal had been waiting for him in a place Will knew exactly where to find him. He attempts not to frown, but his eye twitches, and Will’s gaze jumps over Hannibal’s face, taking in every single reaction. He knows Hannibal so well now that he can probably read exactly what Hannibal is thinking.

“With being away from the FBI.” Will says slowly, averting the slip of tongue and skipping the topic entirely. He takes another bite of food. Chews. Swallows. “I used to just snatch meals when I could. I didn’t have much appetite when I was…” He locks Hannibal with a look, “Unwell.”

And now it is Hannibal’s wrongdoing of Will laid out on the table, so they avoid that too.

*

Hannibal goes to bed early that night, and is dozing by the time Will makes it to bed. He feels the mattress shift as Will climbs in. He comes to a little, prepared for Will to snuggle up to his chest as is the norm now (as difficult as it is for Hannibal to have Will so close, but no further). But Will does not come.

Hannibal cracks an eye open to see Will lying beside him and above him, leant up on one elbow. Will moves, slowly lifting his arm over Hannibal, until he hovers half over Hannibal’s body, holding himself up. Hannibal just stares up at him, waiting with restrained excitement for whatever Will has in store. Suddenly, Will relaxes a little on his arms, and drops down to press his lips to Hannibal’s. The kiss lasts no more than a second or two, but to Hannibal it is like the kiss of life he has been waiting for since dragging himself from the sea onto a craggy alcove a month ago and hauling Will with him. Will pulls back and hums to himself thoughtfully, as though weighing the kiss up in his mind. Hannibal waits and Will leans down once more to give him another kiss.

“Goodnight Hannibal.” Will whispers against his lips.

“Goodnight Will.” Hannibal breathes in reply.

Will smiles at him in the mild darkness, and settles down on Hannibal’s chest. Hannibal wraps his arms around Will immediately and he presses a kiss into Will’s hair.

Will’s fingers trace idly up and down Hannibal’s ribs.

“Would you go back to them, if you could?” Hannibal asks. He shouldn’t, but he needs to know.

“I miss my dogs.” Will admits, “But the rest of it – _them_ – they don’t feel like home anymore.” Will holds him tighter. “You do, though.”

Hannibal’s heart grows a little warmer, and his mind eases regarding Will’s wife and stepson, for now.

“I could always get a dog here.” Will suggests hopefully into the content quiet that follows.

If that isn’t confirmation that Will intends to stay, Hannibal does not know what is. For the time being, he would be perfectly content with what they had and no more, so long as he knows Will would rather be here.

“You could.” He allows. They would have to discuss it of course (Hannibal has never had a pet, and has no wish to have one now) but they could. If it made Will happy, they could.

 *

Eight nights with Will sleeping beside him has allowed Hannibal to observe Will in a way he never has been able to before. Will’s nightmares, which have only remerged on two occasions, leave Will shuddering and stuttering out whines and clenching his fists in the sheets, and one time Hannibal waits a little while before soothing him awake, out of interest more than anything. He watches Will’s eyes roll beneath their lids, stores the noises Will makes into his memory, sees him arch and writhe and pant. Will mumbles out words in between, about dragons and stags, and appears to be battling both spectres in different ways. When Will is not in a fitful sleep, he otherwise sleeps like the dead. It is a remarkable contrast to the throes of his nightmares; soft and pliant on Hannibal’s chest, hand curled up not far from his face, peaceful and quietly beautiful.

Hannibal knows that he is not alone in the observations; three times he has woken to Will watching him from the other pillow, silently taking in his face. He wonders what it is Will sees there, sometimes, and ponders whether Will wants Hannibal in the same way Hannibal still wants Will.

It takes another two days for him to find out.

It had been another quiet day, much of the same, but for one difference. Will had been much more tactile than usual during the day; which wasn’t much to be truthful, but Hannibal is well versed in Will’s mannerisms. It was impossible for him not to notice how Will’s hand purposefully brushed his whilst handing him the morning paper; how he pressed against him as he peered at the laptop screen over Hannibal’s shoulder; how his knee brushed Hannibal’s under the table at dinner; and how he stood closer by than usual whilst Hannibal washed the dishes afterward. They are all little things, and would be minute to someone who does not know Will as Hannibal does, but to Hannibal these small touches indicate a change in Will - a new bravery - and could potentially be building to something new. It has left Hannibal buzzing with anticipation all day.

Hannibal is sketching by the fireplace in the early evening; carefully shading with pencil. Will is not far away on the couch, reading a book, although Hannibal has noted that Will is paying more attention to Hannibal than reading his book.

After an hour or so of this, Will eventually abandons his book and moves to stand before him. Hannibal looks up from his work and waits expectantly for what Will wants to say. He has decided the best way to let Will pull the strings is to hand over the reins in these moments. Particularly with Will having apparently being building up to this for the entire day.

He is unsurprised to see that Will looks a little awkward. He is ringing his hands, and shifting on his feet. “I was thinking of going to bed.” He says.

“Are you tired?” Hannibal asks, feigning obliviousness, despite his increasing excitement at Will’s possible intentions. He glances at the clock and sees that it is only 19:07.

“I was wondering, uh…” Will rubs a hand over the back of his neck, his eyes looking just over Hannibal’s shoulder rather than in his eyes; an old technique of a much more unstable Will Graham. “I was wondering if you would join me? If you are still interested. Please.”

Hannibal does not need Will’s offer spelling out any further, and he dare not pretend he did not know this was coming and play it out any longer, for fear of Will retracting his proposal.

Hannibal places his sketchbook and pencil on the coffee table, and stands. The moment he is on his feet, Will holds out his hand. For all Will’s embarrassment in asking, his hand is completely steady. Hannibal takes it, and Will’s palm is dry and soft, and Hannibal allows himself to enjoy winding his fingers tight around Will’s own. Will smiles at him, small and shy and utterly enchanting, and tugs Hannibal out of the lounge and towards the bedroom.

Hannibal almost stumbles in to Will when Will stops abruptly, about a metre from the bedroom door, and turns to him. Hannibal opens his mouth to enquire what the matter is, and that if Will had changed his mind then that was quite alright, when Will eyes him thoughtfully, carefully, and then lifts a hand up and places it feather-light along Hannibal’s jaw. Hannibal shuts his mouth again.

“I’m not very good at this.” Will starts, before his lips crash into Hannibal’s.

As far as Hannibal is concerned, Will’s statement is utterly false. Will’s mouth is soft and delicate, and he immediately settles into the perfect angle. Hannibal responds, because how could he not, and Will’s lips part with a small, pleased moan. That single moan is the sweetest sound that Hannibal has heard in a long time. Will’s hand slides down to rest against Hannibal’s neck and the other reaches up to Hannibal’s waist when Hannibal steps forward, cupping Will’s face in his own hands. He turns Will’s face up a little, to allow for Hannibal’s height advantage, and tugs Will’s bottom lip with his teeth. Will gasps and shudders, his mouth opening further, and Hannibal allows himself to taste properly. Will is the forbidden fruit no longer, but he tastes as sweet and succulent as Hannibal has imagined. He licks along Will’s teeth, and Will’s tongue meets his in a fight for dominance that has absolutely no trace of Will’s earlier embarrassment in it.

They finally part for breath, and Will looks up at Hannibal with his large blue eyes and Hannibal sees something in them that he has only seen a couple of times before; a curious longing, paired with a passionate hunger that reflects Hannibal’s own.

“I’ve made up my mind,” Will says, a little breathlessly.

“I can see that.” Hannibal says, and he cannot believe that after so many years, Will has finally come to him this way, genuinely wanting him as Hannibal wants him in return.

“My ‘compassion’ for you became inconvenient for living in such close proximity.” Will’s smile borders on a smirk. He is emboldened and aroused by the kiss between them, and his confidence is bright in the face of his nervous offer only five minutes earlier.

“You now understand my dilemma.” Hannibal retorts, watching Will with amusement at Will’s choice of words.

“I do.” Will says, and there’s a thrill in his expression when he stands a little higher to brush his lips once more to Hannibal’s. He looks Hannibal dead in the eye, “I intend to fix that dilemma.” The promise in his voice is velvet and seductive, and has only before been used on Hannibal when Will was playing his cruellest of games. Now, it is being used for Hannibal, not against him, and Hannibal prefers it infinitely more.

Will walks back a few paces to the door, and Hannibal follows. He reaches over Will’s shoulder to push the door open so that they can both step through.

“You’re holding back.” Will notes, raising his hands to the buttons of Hannibal’s shirt. “You can touch me, if you want to.” He says it in exactly the same way he first asked Hannibal to hold him in his bed over a week ago. “I want you to.” Will insists. And just as he did over a week ago, the moment Hannibal gets verbal confirmation that Will wants him to touch, he does so immediately. He pulls Will forward again by his shirt, trapping Will’s hands between them, and kissing him again, dirty and hot and just how Hannibal has always, always wanted to. Will seems to have absolutely no problem with this, and Hannibal can feel Will’s hands working on his shirt buttons a little more frantically.

“God, Hannibal.” Will gasps against his lips the second the kiss ends. “Jesus.” He pushes Hannibal’s shirt off his shoulders and lays his forehead on the bared skin, catching his breath.

Hannibal’s chest is heaving, and his trousers are tight. He feels Will’s own erection pressed against his thigh, but will not act on anything until Will is ready. It only takes a second or two more before Will rights himself, and Hannibal reaches for Will’s shirt whilst raising an eyebrow, asking silent permission to rid Will of his clothing too.

Will shakes his head and catches Hannibal’s hand. “Wait a second,” his eyes are fixed on Hannibal’s bared skin, but they flick up to catch Hannibal’s eye, “I just want to…” He gestures in Hannibal’s general direction, “I just want to see you, for a moment. To appreciate…” He closes his eyes and takes a breath, “And curse myself for not seeing all this sooner.” He laughs a little bitterly, and then squints his eyes open to judge Hannibal’s reaction. It is all rather adorable.

Hannibal does not mind this idea in the slightest. He opens his arms placatingly, “I’m all yours, Will.” He says, and the words have long since been true. It had been to Hannibal’s surprise and inconvenience at first, his need for Will, but he has grown used to being with Will, and wanting Will, and now he finally gets to take, but slowly, patiently, to give Will time to catch up. “I will do anything and everything you desire of me.”

“There are so many things,” Will starts, and that statement alone is more than anything Hannibal would ever have hoped to hear from Will Graham’s lips. The actions that follow; Will’s hand rising to Hannibal’s bare chest, touching, gliding across skin, skimming over a nipple, is equally as indescribable. Will steps as close as he can whilst still being able to see all of Hannibal, and looks up at him, a little nervous, “But I’ve never been with a man before. It’ll just be you.”

The admittance is enough to turn Hannibal’s arousal up a whole other notch. He had suspected as much, but the fact that this is the case, and Will is attracted to him and wants to be with him sexually, makes him feel wanted and powerful in Will’s eyes. “We can take it slowly,” Hannibal promises, and his voice comes out rougher and heavier in its accent than it had been before, and he notices how Will’s pupils expand at the sound of it. “I can take you through everything step by step, teach you how.”

“Yes.” Will hisses out and nips at Hannibal’s lips. His thumbs meet Hannibal’s nipples and press a little. “My mentor, my tormentor.”

Before Hannibal can respond to that, Will is working on the belt and fly of Hannibal’s trousers, and the moment they are undone, they fall to the floor and Hannibal steps out of them neatly, toeing off his socks in the process.

Hannibal looks up when this is done, to find Will standing a pace away, looking Hannibal up and down with something akin to awe; a look of sexual desire that Hannibal did not think he would ever see for him on Will’s face. “Hannibal,” Will breathes, and Hannibal hardens further at the sound of his name on Will’s tongue, “You are so beautiful.” He is so earnest in his words, “I am sorry it has taken me so long to see it, and then to act on it. I needed to be sure of a few things and I…”

“I understand.” Hannibal says. He does. Will has memories that have stalled him in his decisions; Abigail’s throat being slit before his eyes at Hannibal’s hand, Hannibal’s framing of him, Hannibal cutting into his head to get to the brain inside. Hannibal understands why Will has been hesitant, but he does not regret anything he has done. Besides, Will has seen that there was always more to it than that. He has learned the reasons behind Hannibal’s actions, whilst equally causing Hannibal to suffer in turn through various means.

Will smiles at him, and then his hands descend on Hannibal’s skin again, running along his cheekbone and then down his neck, and when Will’s mouth follows, to press a kiss to Hannibal’s cheek, and then to mouth at Hannibal’s pulse point, Hannibal cannot help but groan. Will’s mouth is heavenly, and Hannibal knows Will will be a quick learner with all the rest that they shall experience together. He cannot wait for it.

“Will,” Hannibal gasps after allowing Will a few moments of teasing, “May I?”

“Yes.” Will says, and lets Hannibal slowly divest him of his clothes. Hannibal savours in taking his time. He exposes one shoulder first; kissing the nob of bone on the top of it, before down to the bullet wound left by Jack Crawford, then does the same to the other shoulder; but this time, the scars left by Chiyoh and Francis Dolarhyde. He palms Will’s hip bones as he buries his face in Will’s neck, smelling his arousal and excitement, before chasing those scents with his tongue. Will gasps in his ear, and his hand drops to the front of his jeans, still done up, and palms himself through the material, until Hannibal catches his hand and moves it away. “Allow me,” He offers, hair falling over his eyes as he looks down to undo Will’s jeans and remove them.

By the time he is finished, the pair of them only remain in their underwear. He allows himself to look at Will properly for the first time. He looks exquisite, his curls ruffled and already debauched, his pupils blown and dark, his skin flushed with an attractive glow. He still holds himself a little self-consciously, which is ridiculous. There is not an inch of Will that is not unaware perfection, and Hannibal looks down at the long white scar that runs parallel to the top of Will’s boxer shorts. The hard line of Will’s erection is obvious through his boxers, and Hannibal’s tongue darts out to wet his lips at the thought of the taste of it.

Will watches Hannibal’s mouth through the action, transfixed, and then walks backwards towards the bed. He lies down on it slowly, ultimately at the stage of arousal where any lingering insecurity is all but gone, and he tilts his hips up a little in invitation as he rests back on his elbows. Hannibal wastes no time in following. Enough time has been wasted between them. Hannibal will not let it stretch on for another second. He curls his fingers around the top of Will’s underwear, and Will lifts his hips to allow Hannibal to ease them off slowly. Hannibal watches the reveal of sharp hipbones, and delicate paler skin that has been kept hidden from the sun, and Will’s cock, flushed and velvety, standing to attention for him.

“Hannibal,” Will breathes, head falling back as Hannibal bends his head to mouth down Will’s stomach, along the entire length of their scar on Will’s stomach, down to a hip bone, and then to blow a swift breath of air across the tip of Will’s cock. Will keens and his hips tilt up again.

“What do you want me to do for you, Will?” Hannibal asks, deep and wanting, looking up the length of Will’s body, his beautiful canvas and unfinished masterpiece all ready and waiting for him to begin a whole new stage of art.

Will is still up on his elbows, his head bent back, his neck taut and exposed. “I…I want…”

Hannibal lowers his head, wrapping his arm around one of Will’s legs to bend it up, so that he can mouth at the inside of Will’s thigh. He keeps his eyes on Will, who, startled by the new sensation, lifts his head back up to look down at him and promptly moans, satisfyingly loud. “Oh god,” His eyes are wide and transfixed, his mouth hanging open, “Oh god, Hannibal, if you knew how you looked…”

Hannibal grazes his teeth over the spot he has been worshipping, and Will shudders in his hold.

“Ok,” Will gasps, “I’ve decided. I want to see you. I want you to be up here with me.”

Hannibal complies, leaving Will’s thigh and moving to hover over the length of Will’s body until he is looking directly down at Will. Will drops back from his elbows so that he is lying flat, and wriggles to reach Hannibal’s underwear. Hannibal assists him in removing them completely and dropping them to the floor.

Will’s eyes find Hannibal’s cock immediately and he reaches for it curiously. Hannibal groans and he drops his head to Will’s neck when fingers wrap firmly around the base. Hannibal adjusts his position as Will begins to move his hand, tightening the circle of his fingers and brushing a thumb over the head which has Hannibal hissing out savagely between his teeth. His own hand circles Will’s and they bring each other to the brink together, at the same pace, working in tandem, just as they had brought down the Dragon. The perfect, ruthless, elegant team.

Hannibal’s strength can only keep him up on one arm for so long, so he lowers himself further, so that he is bracketing Will’s head with one arm, and then stalls Will’s hand on his cock, replacing it so that he now holds both of them together for the final moments. He is content to suck a bruise into the skin of Will’s neck, until Will gasps, “Hannibal, I need you to look at me. Please.”

Hannibal nearly loses himself right then but for Will’s request, which Hannibal will most certainly obey. He lifts his head to look into Will’s eyes. They are wide and open and so desperately on the edge, that it almost reminds Hannibal of the days in which Will was near hysterical and drugged and although it is terrible of him, Hannibal finds that reminder incredibly enticing. Will looks up at him and Hannibal can see it in his eyes that he understands him, he wants him, he loves him. And with one final soft gasp of “Hannibal,” escaping Will’s mouth like a prayer, Hannibal comes undone.

Will is watching him when Hannibal opens his eyes and his body stops shuddering. Will’s mouth is still lax and open, his eyes blown with lust and desperation to come, and he’s hard in Hannibal’s hand. “Hann…” Will whines out, “Hannibal. Please.”

Hannibal speeds up his hand and leans down to whisper in Will’s ear, “Come for me, Will. You have been such a good boy for me. My beautiful, beautiful boy.”

And almost as though waiting for Hannibal’s permission (which Hannibal is delighted about), Will promptly comes, and Hannibal moves so as to see Will’s face. It is everything he has imagined and more; Will’s eyes screwed shut, head back, gasps spilling in a staccato from his lips.

Hannibal drops to Will’s side and pulls him into his arms as the last of Will’s spasms subside. They are hot and sweaty and sticky, and Hannibal knows it will not take long before his perfectionism will have him get up and clean them of sweat and cum, but for now he peppers kisses across Will’s cheekbones and then lies down properly beside him.

Will finds his voice eventually, staring up at the ceiling above and still panting heavily, “My compassion is less of an inconvenience now. In fact, I find it a very profitable thing indeed.”

Hannibal chuckles into Will’s hair, and Will turns his head to find Hannibal’s lips.

*

The days that follow are as serene and blissful as Hannibal has ever known. They stay indoors mostly, their usual routines mostly uninterrupted, but even from that first night between them exchanges of touches and kisses become a common occurrence. The touches are almost so natural between them that it feels like they have been doing this (or should have been doing this, Hannibal thinks) for years.

In the evenings (and sometimes during the day if they allow themselves to become distracted) Hannibal and Will entice each other over the brink of release.

Hannibal lets Will explore him, to find all his sensitive spots and learn how he likes to be touched, and he takes great pleasure in learning Will in a whole new way.

He teaches Will how to pleasure him with his mouth. Will does very well, and as Hannibal expected, is a quick learner. It is a great thing, to gaze down at one’s most treasured and earned of prizes, card a hand through its thick brown curls, as it kneels before you and worships you with its mouth. Will’s mouth is soft, his throat yielding, and he swallows obediently. Hannibal notices the little details too; how Will’s long eyelashes look as they rest against his cheeks as his head bobs. The moment Will swallows, he climbs up to Hannibal’s mouth and lets him taste, mouth pliant to be plundered, relaxed in Hannibal’s arms. He is perfect.

Will’s love is clear, although he has not yet blatantly said as much aloud. Though, to be honest, neither has Hannibal. Will has also not yet trusted Hannibal to return the favour; to let him taste any lower than the head of his cock, and Hannibal is hungrier to taste Will than ever before. Maybe it’s the thought of a cannibal’s teeth so near to delicate areas, or maybe it is simply because Will is so busy wanting to learn how to pleasure Hannibal, and possibly eager to apologise for lost time and Hannibal’s longer-accepted feelings, that he has not yet considered allowing Hannibal to pleasure him yet. It is against Hannibal’s courteous nature to persuade Will otherwise, and although he longs to return those ministrations, he is also content to patiently wait for the day that Will is so desperate for him that he begs it of him. There has been no penetrative sex between them either, and as much as Hannibal wants to learn and fill and feel and have Will inside and out,  he is happy to wait for that to come to him too.

*

There is, however, one slightly irksome thing to have occurred from Will and Hannibal’s first coming together. Now that Will knows how much the word ‘please’ on his lips is like a key to turn Hannibal on and have him at his beck and call, he has begun to take full advantage of it, but not in the most pleasing of ways.

“Hannibal,” Will asks quietly one evening when he is tucked into Hannibal’s side on the couch. “Please will you do something for me?”

“Anything.” Hannibal promises, turning his head to press his lips to Will’s temple.

“You won’t go after Alana and Margot will you?” Will asks, voice low and taking on a pleading tilt. He looks up at Hannibal with a soft, beseeching face. “Please.”

“No.” Hannibal says, because he promised. “No I won’t.”

“Hannibal,” Will says on a different occasion; Hannibal’s sitting in an armchair and Will’s on his knees between Hannibal’s spread thighs.

Will has Hannibal’s flies undone, and big, darkened eyes look up at Hannibal as though he is an idol, and Hannibal thumbs Will’s lower lip, soon to be slick with his cum, and Hannibal allows, “Yes?”

“You never promised me that you weren’t going to hunt down Molly and Wally.”

Hannibal’s arousal deflates almost instantaneously; a hard feat when he has Will kneeling before him. “I didn’t?” Hannibal asks, faux-innocent and aloof.

“No.” Will says. He keeps his eyes on Hannibal’s as he tugs at Hannibal’s already open shirt, and leans forward to mouth at Hannibal’s stomach. The faint scratch of stubble has Hannibal’s muscles jumping. “You didn’t.” He pulls back, and his hands reach for Hannibal’s, “Please.” His lips run along Hannibal’s fingers, “Please don’t. You know I have no intention to return to them.” Will’s begging tone and his wide, imploring eyes are a killer combination; one that Hannibal hopes they will take advantage of in the years to come. “I only need you Hannibal. I only want you. I only belong to you. But I don’t want them to die because of me. Please.”

Will has not said that he ‘belongs’ to Hannibal before. Hannibal finds he very much likes it. He removes his hand from Will’s grasp, and winds it into Will’s hair, pulling Will’s head back, and Will follows it obligingly. “You are mine, only?”

“You know that I am.”

Hannibal studies him a moment. He knows it is truth that Will would not go back to them now, if only for their safety, but Hannibal had plotted to dispatch of Molly and Wally at some point, having been slightly disappointed when Francis Dolarhyde had failed in his mission. But Hannibal has already taken Abigail from Will (something which devastated him to the point of Hannibal almost losing him) and since Will asked so nicely, he decides to let Will have his way. “You do beg so prettily, Will.” He says, “And you certainly are a cunning boy to use it against me.”

Will’s throat is bared, so Hannibal can see how his adam’s apple bobs, and Hannibal wants to sink his teeth into it. “Hannibal…I…”

Hannibal shushes him and loosens his hold in Will’s hair, leaning forward and petting Will’s face with his other hand. “Your wish is mine to command.”

Will melts in his hold and he kisses the inside of Hannibal’s palm. “Thank you.”

Hannibal enjoys Will’s thanks as much as his pleases.

“Now,” Will says, pushing Hannibal gently back in his seat, “Where was I?”

Hannibal raises an eyebrow, and Will smiles coyly at him, reaching back to where Hannibal’s cock had briefly been abandoned, a hard line in his exposed underwear.

Will has Hannibal coming in minutes, Will’s words of ‘ _I only need you Hannibal. I only want you. I only belong to you_ ’, affecting him and ringing in his mind. The fact that there was absolutely no trace of a lie in those words makes Hannibal even happier to let Molly and Wally go, for the time being.

*

It takes Hannibal another week until he begins to get cabin fever. It has been nearly two months since he gained his freedom by the actions of Francis Dolarhyde and the cunning of Will Graham, and he has had to spend the majority of it locked inside. He has only gotten to kill one person, which is highly disappointing. His hands itch to get out of the house and to take Will with him and hunt. He has had a taste of the two of them hunting together. He has seen how powerful they can be together. He knows Will is his now, so it is just a matter of enthusing Will to start a hunt with him.

They are sitting in the lounge. Hannibal has a book in his hands, but he is not reading it. Instead it stares into the fire with intensity. He sees the fire and he feels a similar, familiar old burn in his belly that tells him it’s been too long and that it is time to hunt again.

Will is sitting at the other end of the couch, also reading, with his feet in Hannibal’s lap (an improper act that Hannibal only really allows from Will), and Hannibal is absently massaging one of Will’s feet in his spare hand (another feat that would at one point have felt absurd to him; how quickly they have adapted to their new situation). Unlike Hannibal, who is distracted by his primal urges to hunt, Will is fully absorbed and content in his book.

Hannibal clears his throat. “I was thinking that we should go and visit an old friend this weekend.”

Will looks up from his book, and Hannibal sees the flash of fear in Will’s eyes. Will is scouring through the names in his mind in that instant, Hannibal knows, thinking of Molly, Wally, Alana, Margot, their young Verger son, even Jack Crawford, Zeller and Price. But Hannibal has made his promises, for the former five at least, and he intends to keep Will by his side. He will not push Will’s loyalties at such an early stage. For all the two of them have fallen into their relationship with ease, it is still a young thing born from isolation from the outside world that could still potentially be rocked by anything outside of their little haven.

 “Who?” Will asks. His voice is steady, but his eyes betray him. The way his fingers tighten a little around the edges of his book betray him.

He quirks an eyebrow at Will, interested to see how Will will react when he finds out what, or rather who, Hannibal has in mind. “Bedelia.” Hannibal says.

“Oh,” Will does not look at all disturbed by this suggestion. He doesn’t show much of any emotion at all; an action that uncannily reflects the woman herself. Will merely pushes his glasses back up his nose and turns back to his book, “Alright.”


	3. Chapter 3

To Bedelia’s credit, she does not look surprised when she opens her front door to find Will and Hannibal standing there. The corner of her lip turns down a fraction and her eyes take on a slightly glazed look of resigned dread, but her voice does not tremble, “I have been expecting you.” She says, and holds the door open for them, because they would be coming in one way or another, and she clearly decides to play to Hannibal’s fondness of courtesy.

They sit in the lounge and make small talk. It is strange how Hannibal can be so full of enthusiastic, intellectual conversation with the woman he has come here to take apart. Bedelia nurses her large wine glass in one hand, swirling the liquid around the bowl of the glass, and countering Hannibal’s conversation as Will presumes she always has; no-nonsense and all-seeing. Will mostly stays quiet, knowing that Bedelia will take any opportunity to cut him down and put him back in his place.

He does notice how she watches the two of them, though. Her eyes follow Hannibal’s hand when he casually leans back on the sofa, still busy voicing his opinion with whatever topic they are currently on, and rests it high on Will’s thigh. Will knows that is most likely an intentional move on Hannibal’s part, despite Hannibal supposedly doing it naturally. Will assumes Hannibal is curious to see how Bedelia will react to it. They both see how Bedelia’s lips purse. Is she jealous? Is she angry at Will for not heeding her warnings; for his sake or hers? Will does not know exactly, the woman is a closed book. She frustrates him; as an empath Will is used to knowing the workings of a mind – he is having enough trouble ridding himself of the Dragon, and he even knows Hannibal almost as well as himself now – but hers is a puzzle. It makes him snappish, and she is even more wounding than he is. So he doesn’t say anything. He does open his legs a little wider though, and Hannibal’s hand squeezes his thigh in response, and Bedelia’s eyes fix icily on his.

Bedelia eventually succumbs to the drugs they all know Hannibal slipped into her wine. By that point Will is so exhausted by the strange social etiquette and rapport that Hannibal and Bedelia share, that he is glad when her eyes turn glassy and the empty wine glass slips from her fingers and falls to the carpet.

It doesn’t break. Will moves to pick it up. “It didn’t shatter.” He says.

Hannibal comes up behind him and reaches round him to take hold of the glass. He presses a lingering kiss to the side of Will’s neck. “You do not want it to be together?”

“No.” Will says. “But I also don’t want it to shatter and then come back together again.”

Hannibal loosens his fingers and lets the glass fall from a higher height. This time the glass breaks and the stem and foot go skittering across the short-haired carpet. “It is a wine glass.” Hannibal says, “Not my teacup. It will not come back together.”

Will turns to press a kiss to the corner of Hannibal’s mouth. “Good to know.” He says.

Hannibal smiles at him fondly, and Will also finds the smugness there that he has been missing the last few weeks. Hannibal looks behind him at the glass shards on the floor, and his gaze lingers at where the stem and foot have come to lie a little way away. “Interesting.” He comments. “I shall get started with our host, shall I, Will? Would you mind clearing up the glass? We wouldn’t want to make a mess.”

Will busies himself with clearing the shards of glass whilst Hannibal lays down plastic on the other side of the room and starts to cut off Bedelia’s leg; a wine glass losing her stem and foot. Will focuses on picking glass out of the carpet, and then lingers in the kitchen after disposing of it all, so that he does not have to watch. He knows Hannibal will be disappointed with him, but as much as Will finds Bedelia a cold, judging character, he cannot stand the noise, and if Hannibal expects him to then eat some, then he would do better not to see.

Hannibal says nothing when Will re-enters the room.

Bedelia however, when she comes around, is a lot more eager to chat. Or rather, to wind Will up, because apparently the helplessness she feels at losing a leg is lessened by making Will feel inadequate.

“Hannibal Lecter and William Graham; missing and presumed dead.” She says to Will whilst Hannibal is the kitchen preparing her left leg. “Consumed by the sea, they all said.” She scoffs. “People never learn. Nothing will ever consume Hannibal Lecter.” She watches Will with that same scrutinizing, insensitive stare that he remembers from their previous encounters, where they shot barb after barb at each other, “And nothing will ever consume Will Graham but Hannibal Lecter.”

“That isn't the case.” Will argues. “Not anymore.” Hannibal’s teacup has finally come together. He would not drop it again, would he?

“And why is that? You are the 'husband' now, as I was the 'bride'.” The smell of cooking meat has turned her skin a sickly pallor, “And you are his most savoured of people, Will Graham. Why would he not want a taste of his greatest prize?”

Will does not give her an answer. He only smiles at her. He acts a lot more confident in his place at Hannibal’s side than he sometimes feels, and Bedelia has found that part of him, and is using it against him with all she has left. But she has not seen love in Hannibal’s eyes as Will has. She has not felt Hannibal as Will has. And for all she thinks she does, she does not know Hannibal as Will does.

“You do realise,” Will says, placing the knives and forks painstakingly on the table just as Hannibal has taught him to, “That you were only the bride because he could not have a family with Abigail and myself.”

“And yet you were so quick to proclaim me the bride of Frankenstein, before you truly became his.” Her eyes seem to be boring into Will’s soul, so Will focuses on folding the napkins. “You are changed, Will Graham.” She remarks, “No longer the fragile little object of Hannibal’s affections and manipulations. No. You are his bride now, truly.”

Will huffs a breath out through his nose and ignores her. He sets fresh wine glasses out on the table, though he wants to smash every last one of them just to spite her.

“Or,” Bedelia carries on, constantly tugging at every loose thread of Will’s soul that she can find, “Maybe you are not the bride of Frankenstein at all. Maybe, you are just Frankenstein’s monster. A vicious creature of Hannibal’s making and design.”

“I am of my own design.” Will retorts.

Bedelia sniffs; almost humorously haughty for someone who will soon be eating her own leg. She carries on as though Will never interrupted, “He is perfecting you to his tastes. But he could dismantle you again, if he wished.”

“You think he will do to me as he has done to you?” Will asks as condescendingly as he can. “He does not care for you as he does for me.”

Bedelia’s lip curls, “I am going to go out on a limb here, pardon the pun, and say that you have no idea what Hannibal will do with you if he is one day inclined so. He cares for me differently to you, yes, but he has only taken a leg from me. He feels hunger and love for you in entirety. If you leave him as I did, he will not just take a leg from you. He will take everything.”

*

The journey home in the car is quiet, but not uncomfortable. Hannibal is pleased with himself and happy to drive with the thrill of the evening. Will leaves him to it, staring out of the window and eyes flicking over the street lights as they pass by one by one.

They left Bedelia alive. This is not a problem, because Bedelia’s pride and past association with Hannibal would never let her tell the truth of her ‘accident’ to anybody. The problem for Will is that by the end of the evening and all she had said to wind Will up, Will is a little downhearted that they hadn’t killed her at the end of it. He does not tell Hannibal this, but he thinks Hannibal knows. Hannibal always knows.

There was a positive to the evening however, and that is that Hannibal doted on Will throughout the rest of the evening, and treated Bedelia almost as an afterthought. Will suspects that Hannibal heard much of Bedelia and Will’s conversation whilst he had been in the kitchen, as when he returned with the leg, cooked to perfection and actually smelling incredibly appetizing, he beheld the table and complimented Will’s setting, bending down to kiss the top of Will’s head.

Will only ate a couple of bites of the meat (knowing what it was made it difficult despite the delicious smell) but Hannibal smiled at him with a pride that was not dissimilar to the look he gave him when Will had bitten a chunk out of Cordell’s cheek at Mason Verger’s table. When Bedelia did not eat, however, she was met with utter disapproval. It had made Will smile to himself.

It is well into the early hours when they arrive back to Hannibal’s safe house. Hannibal parks the car in the concealed garage, and then they make their way into the hall.

It is only then that Hannibal speaks, “You did very well this evening.”

Will tries not to preen, but it is difficult under Hannibal’s sincere praise. “Thank you. I’ll learn how to do it all properly eventually.”

Hannibal pulls him into his arms and kisses him. Will can taste Hannibal’s hunger, as well as the traces of after-dinner coffee. “You do not like Bedelia, do you?”

“No.” Will says frankly, “She knows just which buttons to press.”

“Hmm.” Hannibal hums, and his hands stray down Will’s back to his backside to pull him closer to him. “So do I.” And with that Hannibal ducks his head to nibble on Will’s ear; teeth that not long ago were quite contentedly chewing human flesh. Will groans.

“You heard, didn’t you? What she said to me.” Will asks, and Hannibal hums again, this time in agreement, as his teeth nip down Will’s neck, fingers pulling Will’s shirt aside to get along a centimetre or two of shoulder.

“I did.” Hannibal admits, “But you did not believe her, of course.” He moves his head back up, his dark maroon eyes watch Will closely.

“Of course not.” Will lies.

Hannibal must detect that he is lying. But he appears to allow it to pass. He seems far keener to show Will physically that he is more precious to Hannibal than Bedelia is. He slides a hand into Will’s hair and kisses him again, licking slowly into his mouth and taking his time. Will melts a little – Hannibal’s mouth is a wicked, wonderful thing – and meets Hannibal’s tongue with his own.

Will pulls back a little, allowing Hannibal to nip at his bottom lip once or twice beforehand, and then whispers “Hannibal,” against his mouth.

“Yes?”

“I want…” Will moves so that his arms are wrapped around Hannibal’s waist, and his mouth hovering just under Hannibal’s sculpted jaw. “I want you to make love to me.” He says slowly, wantonly, because he does want it. God, he wants it so bad.

Hannibal’s intake of breath just above his ear has Will smiling triumphantly into his skin. Will traces with teeth, before looking up into Hannibal’s eyes. “I want you to fuck me, and I want you to suck me off first.”

Hannibal’s fingers grasp his chin roughly, “Crude.” He admonishes, but he’s smirking, and he pets a hand across Will’s neck before kissing him once more. “But it would be an understatement to say that the idea is not totally agreeable.” He looks Will dead in the eye. “As long as you are sure?”

Will has never been surer of anything. “I want you, Hannibal.” He says. “I need you.”

That is apparently all Hannibal needs to hear.

Will is sprawled out naked on the bed in no time. Hannibal is equally as naked and working his way slowly down Will’s body, taking his time on mouthing Will’s nipples, and all the other secret spots that Will has - down his ribs, along the scar Hannibal gave him – and finally, finally, after teasing for a lifetime at Will’s hipbones and inner thighs, which Hannibal appears to thoroughly enjoy, he gets his mouth on Will’s cock. Holy heaven, how Will has managed to keep Hannibal away from this very thing for so long now seems both impossible and ridiculous on his part.

Hannibal knows exactly what he is doing, because of course he does. And he keeps his teeth very much to himself. All that Will feels is lips and tongue and suction and good lord, Hannibal’s hand is massaging Will’s balls and it feels like too much and not enough all at once. He suddenly realises that the loud moans and whines he can hear are of his own making, and that his hips are out of his control, tipping up to follow Hannibal’s mouth, and Hannibal has to use his other hand to pin Will’s hips back to the bed, so that he can continue his torture just as he wants.

Will looks down at Hannibal, to find Hannibal watching him back, obviously judging every sound and movement Will makes. Hannibal’s eyes are as dark as they get when he is riding the high of a kill. And Will is entirely at his mercy.

Will makes a series of sounds that should be ‘Hannibal’ but come out as a garbled, incoherent version, and he moves a shaking hand to Hannibal’s hair, raking a hand through it and messing it up just how Will likes it. He tugs on it sharply, once, to see what would happen, and Hannibal moans, the sound vibrating down Will’s cock and has him shuddering.

It takes mere minutes for Will to come, shaking and gasping for air, with Hannibal’s name on his lips. He can feel Hannibal swallow around his cock and then lick him clean until it feels too much for sensitive flesh and Will makes a soft noise of protest. The hand that was pinning his hips down moves to stroke soothingly at his stomach as Hannibal pulls away and moves back to lie beside him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder as he goes.

“That was amazing.” Will says, and even then it is an understatement.

“You put your trust in me.” Hannibal shrugs, thumbing the corner of his own mouth to catch a stray strand of cum, “I felt I should show you my gratitude for it.”

Will looks up at Hannibal in awe, and watches Hannibal run his tongue along his teeth. “How do I taste?” Will asks, feeling bold and curious. He has seen Hannibal a couple of times lick his hand clean of Will’s cum, but he has never had Will in his mouth before tonight. Will feels morbidly satisfied that it is the taste of Will, and not Bedelia, that will now linger in Hannibal’s mouth.

Hannibal smiles, satisfied and Cheshire-like, “Exquisite and unique. Just as I expected.” Hannibal’s head tilts ever so slightly and then the next thing Will knows, he is being straddled and Hannibal’s face is hovering just centimetres above his own. “Do you want to find out for yourself?”

Will did not realise he had tilted his head up to find Hannibal’s lips until Hannibal is pulling away with a teasing smirk. Will stalls and he frowns in confusion at himself, but also at Hannibal for denying him.

“Apparently you do.” Hannibal says.

“Apparently I do.” Will agrees. He licks his lips and he knows he has the upper hand the moment Hannibal’s smile falters and he watches the movement like a hawk. “Though I am not a connoisseur of flavours as you are.”

Hannibal looks proud of him, for a moment, before Hannibal is closing the distance, and Will licks into Hannibal’s open mouth. Tasting himself from Hannibal’s mouth is peculiar, and although he can taste Hannibal underneath, there is the salty tang on his tongue that is presumably him. Will can feel Hannibal hard between their stomachs, and Will closes a hand around him. Hannibal’s breath judders and his hips shift into Will’s hold.

Hannibal groans against his lips, “Do you still want me inside of you, Will?”

“Yes.” Will whispers, and looks up to see the adoration in Hannibal’s eyes. Hannibal, powerful and dangerous, looks at Will like he is something precious. Something to treasure.

“Then we will need a couple of things, give me a moment.” Hannibal breathes. He kisses Will’s cheek, just above his scar, climbs off Will and heads toward the bathroom.

Will collapses back on the bed and uses the break to catch his breath, until Hannibal is back and takes it away again when he kisses him thoroughly.

Hannibal’s hand trails down Will’s side, subtly arranges him underneath him by the time the hand reaches his thigh.

Will cannot help but gasp a little against Hannibal’s lips when a finger, slick with lube, presses against him. Hannibal shushes him, kisses him once below his ear, and then asks him if he is sure he wants to continue.

Will nods eagerly. He wants Hannibal inside of him. He needs him there. “Please, Hannibal.” He begs.

Hannibal smiles at him affectionately, and Will manages to hold his gaze, biting his bottom lip as he relaxes and allows the first of Hannibal’s fingers in.

“Ok?” Hannibal asks him.

Hannibal, the man who had previously manipulated Will to the point of insanity and homicide, and sent a serial killer after his family, is now treating Will like he might break completely if he pushes him too hard. He is afraid of hurting him. How times have changed.

Will nods, slowly releasing his lip from his teeth and taking a shuddering breath. “Yes.”

And Will _is_ ok. More ok now than he ever thought he would be – could be – because he has Hannibal in his life, and they are open and honest, and Will knows  (as he did long before he woke up with a permanent scar, Abigail dead, and Hannibal Lecter half way across the world) that he could never truly exist, not completely, without Hannibal.

Hannibal’s moving his finger now, crooking it and rubbing just so that Will is having to swallow down noises, his hands skimming up Hannibal’s arms and across his broad shoulders for want of something to do. Hannibal nudges Will’s thigh, and Will takes the hint, spreading his legs wider, and Hannibal adds a second finger.

There is a burn at the intrusion, but Will expects it, Hannibal being the first person to ever touch him in this way, and it soon gives way to pleasure, because Hannibal knows exactly what he is doing, and knows Will well enough to be able to read every little movement and expression he makes and act accordingly.

“You should not stifle the sounds of your pleasure, Will.” Hannibal asks of him, “Please don’t. There is only myself here to hear it, and I very much want to hear you,” Hannibal’s free hand moves to ghost over Will’s lips. “I want to hear the sounds I draw from you.” He thumbs Will’s bottom lip, and Will parts them, tracing Hannibal’s thumb briefly with his tongue.

Satisfied, Hannibal returns to his task, and Will lets out a huffing breath through his nose. When Hannibal finally adds a third finger, Will gives in to Hannibal’s request and does not swallow the moan that rises from his throat.

Hannibal takes his time in scissoring his fingers and moving them in and out and winding Will up and up, and Will wants more. He wants all of Hannibal. “Hannibal,” He whines through his teeth, “I’m ready, please.” He moves his hips, only to have Hannibal tut and press them back down again. “I swear you are just teasing me now.”

Hannibal chuckles at him and then he removes his fingers. Will makes an involuntary noise at the loss. It feels strange suddenly, not having Hannibal there. Will does not miss the look on Hannibal’s face – as thrilled as Hannibal can get – and it makes Will pleased to see it. Will does not notice that his hand has strayed down to his own cock, until his wrist is caught firmly in one of Hannibal’s hands.

“No touching.” It’s not a strict order, but it is enough to have Will lifting his hands away and laying them on either side of his head. The look that _that_ action gets him from Hannibal is something else entirely; heated and hungry, clearly aroused by Will’s submissive gesture.

It also hurries Hannibal up in his preparations. Will watches him finish slicking himself up, unable to look away, and then he is hooking Will’s legs over his shoulders, pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of Will’s knee, and pressing in.

“God.” Will chokes out. It’s painful and it burns, but Hannibal is shushing him, hands steadying him, trailing over his skin, worshipping him in a way Will has never experienced before.

“Relax Will, breathe with me.”

Will focuses his breathing; in and out, in and out, and he finds himself relaxing. He keeps his fevered eyes fixed on Hannibal’s as Hannibal pushes all the way in, and Hannibal stares right back, like he can’t believe Will is beneath him and allowing him inside in this way.

Will finally relaxes down into the mattress, the burn is less and manageable, and he knows pleasure will follow in its wake. “Good boy.” Hannibal murmurs, petting his thigh.

Will has not missed Hannibal’s increasingly frequent use of the word ‘boy’ when speaking to him; ‘cunning boy’, ‘good boy’, ‘beautiful boy’, but as it is meant as an endearment, Will finds himself unable to be irked by it. In fact, he finds himself exhilarated under it, and he is sure that just as he has noticed Hannibal’s regular use of the word, Hannibal has equally noticed how Will has not yet cautioned him for it.

When Hannibal starts to move, Will moves with him, and when Hannibal first hits that sweet spot inside of Will, Will almost sobs with how good it feels. The pleasure shoots through his veins and crackles under his skin and he arches into it with a loud moan. He’s fully hard again, by this point, and he hasn’t been so quick to recover in years.

He tightens his legs around Hannibal as Hannibal hits that spot again and again, and looks up to see Hannibal still watching him, as though Will’s pleasure is his utmost concern, but his eyes are slightly wilder, his hair is in disarray and slicked to his forehead. Will reaches up to him, and Hannibal comes to him, leaning into Will’s space to kiss him messily. Will drags his nails through Hannibal’s hair, down his neck and across his shoulders, and Hannibal groans openly into Will’s mouth. Will’s empathy feeds on Hannibal’s pleasure which mergers and increases his own, and it is not long before Will finds himself once more teetering at the edge because of Hannibal’s mouth and hands.

“I’m close Hannibal,” Will pants against Hannibal’s lips when they part, and Hannibal nods in understanding, speeding up his thrusts.

Will’s breath starts to mix with the ‘ah ah ahs’ that indicate his crescendo to release, and Hannibal moves a hand to Will’s cock, pulling only twice before Will is coming, arching up into Hannibal’s hand and Hannibal’s name on his lips. Hannibal follows a second later, lowering his head to bury his face in Will’s neck, biting unexpectedly (and yet entirely expectedly) at the juncture of Will’s neck and shoulder. Will tilts his head to allow Hannibal access as his body shudders.

They both finally grow still, Hannibal still holding himself up slightly so as to not put all his weight on Will, and Will feels disappointed when Hannibal pulls out of Will and lifts himself over to collapse beside him. Will makes a strange whimpering noise, unable to stop it; he feels empty and because of it, realises how much he liked having Hannibal there.

He feels Hannibal laugh softly beside him, and a kiss graces his cheek. Will feels Hannibal’s hand run down to his hip bone and then up, trailing through the cum on Will’s stomach. Will arches an eyebrow at Hannibal, and Hannibal just grins, lifting his fingers to his mouth to lick the cum away, and Will’s breath unexpectedly leaves him again. Hannibal looks even more than smug at this, watching Will’s face lazily. Will decides he likes that look on Hannibal’s face. He really likes that look.

Will quietly lifts his fingers to Hannibal’s face, letting them linger at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, “Thank you.” he murmurs.

“I should be thanking you.” Hannibal returns. His eyes are dark and soft and Will traces the length of his cheekbone.

Will is not as surprised as he would have once been, to suddenly realise that he was no longer falling in love with Hannibal Lecter. He was already there.

*

The Dragon is waiting for Will when he surrenders to sleep. It has been visiting him most nights.

The scar on his cheek and the one in his shoulder are new and raw and split open, and there are armoured scales protruding from underneath. The wings are at Will’s back and he feels powerful, but not all-powerful. He needs more strength. He needs more kills. He needs…

 _I don’t need you_. Will shouts aloud at the black expanse of sky. There is no moon. The blood on his arms is waxy, but it is not black. The wings attempt to stretch, attempt to wrap around him and smother him. Will snarls at the sky, a Dragon’s warning, and he recoils at the sound escaping from between his teeth. He is not Dolarhyde. He does not need the Dragon. He already has the company of a far better being, a far stronger being, than the Dragon.

 _I don’t need you._ Will says again, more forceful this time. _You think you are powerful, Dragon? Well you’re not. I’ve met the devil. I know him. I love him. And he loves me._

The wings protruding from his shoulder blades recede a little, and become snagged. Will twists around to see the points of antlers impaling the leathery, thin skin and ripping the wings to shreds. This will not be the last of the Dragon. He will return. But Will knows how to control him now. Will smiles.

Will wakes in his devil’s arms. His devil is sleeping; spooned behind him, his breath landing softly, softly on the back of Will’s neck, his hand resting on Will’s stomach. Will huddles back a little into the hold, and Hannibal makes a contended noise in his sleep and he shifts unconsciously, his arms tightening and pressing Will tightly against him.

Will feels safe and protected in his devil’s arms.

He sleeps just fine after that.

*

The darkness of that dream is a stark contrast to the crisp, white morning that follows. Will is lying on his back when he opens his eyes, and the sunlight is streaming through the parted curtains.

The sheets beneath him are soft and expensive and smell clean, and Will vaguely remembers Hannibal stripping the bed before they fell asleep the night before. He feels relaxed and content, still an oddity for Will upon waking after years of insomnia, sweat and the twisting malice of his nightmares. He has Hannibal to pull him away from them now (Molly did too, of course, but not in the same way. And Will is trying not to think of Molly and Wally now, for their sakes as well as his).

Will blinks against the light and looks to Hannibal’s side of the bed. Hannibal is not there. Will can feel his presence, though, and finds him a second later. Hannibal is sitting in a chair beside the bed, wearing a bath robe and nothing else, and he has a sketch book in his hands.

“Are you drawing me?” Will asks incredulously.

“You made for a picturesque sight.” Hannibal returns, and continues his shading.

Will takes stock of his sprawled positon across the bed, in a direct beam of sunlight, and the fact that a corner of the bed sheet (suspiciously artistically placed) just covers his groin and upmost parts of his thighs. The rest of him is bared to Hannibal’s eyes and his pencil.

“Oh.” is all Will’s brain supplies. He looks at Hannibal, “Am I really a worthy subject?”

Hannibal glances up at him, “You have been a worthy subject for my pencil for years, Will. It is, however, only now that I am able to study you so intimately.”

Will is a little taken aback that Hannibal has drawn him before. He thinks back to Hannibal’s previous sketches that he has seen, and whilst he hopes that Hannibal has not sketched him with the thought of how best to display his body in mind, he also finds himself morbidly intrigued as to what Hannibal would draw if he had.

“And do you prefer this study to the past ones?” Will presses.

Hannibal smiles a little, but he does not raise his eyes again from his work, “Very much so.”

Will quiets, and sleepily watches Hannibal draw for a little longer, not moving for the sake of ruining whatever pose Hannibal had found appealing enough to draw. He likes watching Hannibal and studying him in turn; he sees the focus in his eyes, the way he purses his lips slightly when he concentrates, the control of his hand as he moves the pencil confidently across the paper.

Hannibal keeps glancing up at him for reference as he works, but after a while he says, “You know, for all you are being very well behaved and keeping still for me, you are most distracting when you watch me like that.”

“Like what?” Will asks, he moves slightly, lifting his hips (and feeling a little discomfort from the previous night’s activities, but nothing he cannot handle) and relaxing a little more pliantly.

Hannibal rolls his eyes, “You are quite the tease, Will Graham.”

“Well,” Will ventures, “Maybe I want you to join me?”

Hannibal looks back to his drawing and then back up at Will, considering. He closes the sketchbook carefully and puts it down, “The rest can be finished later. And I suppose you have been incredibly patient.”

“Very patient.” Will agrees, “Though not as patient as you.” Hannibal waited years.

Hannibal regards him as he stands up, “No. Not as patient as me.” He climbs onto the bed next to Will. Will is slightly disappointed that Hannibal does not shed the robe.

Hannibal props himself up on an elbow and his eyes trace up and down Will’s body. His eyes linger on Will’s neck, and Will lifts his fingers, pressing against the spot Hannibal bit the night before. He hisses when it hurts, and he knows without needing to look that it has bruised.

Will is about to raise his eyebrow at Hannibal, but when he meets his eyes he finds himself faltering. Hannibal is gazing at him with such hunger that Will says nothing at all, and simply tilts his head to the side, offering.

Hannibal descends instantly, mouthing at his mark, and licks at it gently.

Will feels himself growing hard and shifts, whimpering softly at the feel of Hannibal’s lips and the tickle of Hannibal’s hair on his cheek.

“You know,” Will says into Hannibal’s hair, that hungry look of Hannibal’s still hot in Will’s mind, “You sometimes still look at me like you want to eat me alive.”

“I always want to devour you.” is Hannibal’s reply. His lips do not move far from Will’s neck. His hand smooths down Will’s chest and further, to wrap around his cock. “But I have learned that there are far more pleasurable ways to gain a taste of you.” Hannibal’s tongue drags across Will’s skin. “And you do taste delicious, Will.” His hand pulls up and Will gasps, tugging sharply at Hannibal’s hair to bring him up to his mouth. And he lets Hannibal taste him.

*

They lie together later; Hannibal leans against a pile of pillows, and Will sits between his legs, back to Hannibal’s chest. He likes the way their bodies rise and fall in tandem of breathing, and he can feel Hannibal’s heartbeat at his shoulder. Hannibal has one hand running through Will’s hair, massaging at his scalp in a way that has Will relaxed and sleepy and pliant, and Hannibal’s other hand is between Will’s own. Will plays absentmindedly with Hannibal’s fingers, marvelling at how powerful hands that can snap (and has snapped) necks in a heartbeat are so gentle and smooth between his own.

“You are back to your usual self again.” Will tells Hannibal, breaking their comfortable quiet.

“My usual self?” Hannibal asks, his voice a lilting cadence in Will’s ear.

Will hums in confirmation, “After seeing Bedelia. After hunting. You are back to your usual self.”

“I have missed it, hunting.” Hannibal says, and it does not sound like a confession, because Hannibal has absolutely no qualms about his lifestyle. Not an ounce. And Will could argue now, that Hannibal is even more pleased with how he is, now that he has Will to share it with.

That’s what Will is doing by striking up this conversation; he is letting Hannibal share, because Will is becoming increasingly curious to learn.

“Abigail asked me once if I hunted.” Will recalls. The memories of the time he shared with Abigail tug painfully at his heart. He still sees her sometimes, when he worries over the Dragon in his dreams, or lets his mind trick him into wondering what would happen should Hannibal ever tire of him, and she is always there to talk to. Sometimes she waits just at the corner of his eye. She has replaced her father in Will’s mind, and keeps Garret Jacob Hobbs at bay, and for that, Will will always be pleased to see her there.

Hannibal’s fingers wrap a little tighter around his own; comforting, not angry. “And what did you tell her?”

“That I fish.”

“A very similar sport.”

“That’s what Abigail said. She said that it was the same thing. That one you stalk, the other you lure.”

“She was right.”

“Well, she knew how to do both.” Will looks at Hannibal’s fingers and remembers how they covered Abigail’s wound the day Garret Jacob Hobbs cut her throat open. He tries not to remember how those fingers then cut her open again themselves. “I asked her if she was more of a fisherman or a hunter.” Hannibal is quiet, waiting to hear the answer rather than pushing. Hannibal knows Abigail will always be a painful subject for Will, so he always seems to let Will take his time when he talks about her. “She said her dad taught her how to hunt. She was avoiding the question. So I spelled it out. ‘All those girls your dad killed’, I said, ‘did you fish or did you hunt?’”

“And what did she say?”

“She said she was the lure.”

“She appeared to be quite skilled at fishing. You and she would have made a formidable pair in the water.”

“You appear to be pretty skilled at it too, for someone who prefers to hunt.” Will says.

Hannibal makes a questioning noise, and Will raises an eyebrow, twisting a little to eye Hannibal challengingly. 

“You learnt how to perfect your fishing whilst you were in the Baltimore Hospital did you not?” Will continues, manipulating Hannibal’s hand with his own to mime casting a line, “Because you could not go anywhere, you could not stalk or hunt, you released bait out into the world.” He mimes them reeling their invisible line in. “And we all came swimming straight to you.”

“You think my letter was intended as bait to draw you back?”

“I don’t think it. I know it. And the threat of the Red Dragon made the bait even more tempting.”

The hand that runs through Will’s hair gently taps him on the temple, “You are clever as well as cunning. I will admit that I enjoyed my spell of fishing, though I much prefer being free and able to stalk.” There is silence for a few moments, and Will has the distinct feeling of it building to something that is going to change everything for him once more. He does not have to wait long. Hannibal speaks again, his voice enticing and close to Will’s ear, “I can now value the role of the fisherman. There would not be a more rewarding combination than a hunter and a fisherman working in unison. As you well know; we caught a glimpse of it up on the clifftop with the Dragon.”

Will has been waiting for Hannibal to approach this topic for a while, though, Will wonders whether his bringing up Abigail in the first place had been his own way of initiating it and given Hannibal an opening with which to present the offer. He is not settled with his newly freed darkness yet, so he still does not know quite how much he wants it. But it is becoming increasingly tempting. He wants to see the beauty of the clifftop again.

“You want me to help you hunt?”

“No.” Hannibal’s hand trails from his hair to his neck, and rests comfortably around it, a thumb stroking at Will’s pulse point, “I do not merely want your help. I want you to hunt _with_ me.”

Will lifts Hannibal’s other hand to his mouth and presses his lips against it whilst he thinks it through. He has his answer long before he speaks it out against Hannibal’s knuckles. “I think I want to hunt with you, too.”

*

Will finds that he is remarkably good at fishing. Hannibal seems less surprised, but he has long seen Will’s hidden potential.

And nothing quite compares with how happy Hannibal is with renewing his old lifestyle, but with the addition of Will’s company and acceptance. It makes Will happy in turn.

They have had four successful hunts so far. For these they have travelled to two new states and into two new houses (how many houses Hannibal actually owns, or has the liberty to occupy, Will has never yet dared ask) and taken on new names. The upheaval of the moving is a little tiresome, but they take their time in adjusting to a new place, building the groundwork of a hunt, and making sure to keep under the radar and out of knowledge of the authorities.

Hannibal is meticulous and flawless at what he does (Will wonders how much of Hannibal’s ‘compassion’ for Will was the reason for his faults and ultimate discovery in Baltimore), so they have had no bother each time, and everything has run impossibly smoothly. They are careful. The prey is chosen a little more cautiously than for simply being rude, and the four targets were chosen for differing, but appropriate reasons.

Their first hunt was a corrupt landowner. Hannibal picked her out from numerous prospects after they moved into their new place in Pennsylvania. They did not bother to make much acquaintance. All Will had to do was ‘pick her up’ in a bar and it was that simple.  She had looked suspiciously like Alana Bloom. Hannibal said he did not see the resemblance, and had encouraged Will to make the final ‘kill’. Will had stalled, so Hannibal had done it for him. Hannibal had not been disappointed, and had swept Will up into his arms and kissed him as soon as it was over, full of the rush of the hunt. Will had felt it, buzzing in his veins, and he had kissed Hannibal back with everything he had. Despite that, Will was less tempted to taste the spoils of their hunt. They began pretending that it was not human meat, like back in the old days. It was beef tenderloin, or lamb chop, or pork ribs. Hannibal did not seem to mind too much, as long as Will was eating it. And Will did eat it.

The second target was a rapist. Tried but not found guilty, but was, by overwhelming evidence, very, very guilty. Will had enjoyed that hunt a lot more. They hadn’t tried to lure him in. They just stalked him and followed him to a secluded spot. When they finally had him unconscious on the table in their kitchen, Will had allowed Hannibal to step up close behind him and guide his hand as they carved him up. Will had ended up covered in blood, but he knows that Hannibal has always found that an appealing look on him; and was proved it when they moved straight to the bedroom after all was done. Hannibal served the first cut to him under the false-moniker of ‘venison’. Will had watched with disbelief as the meat on the plate in front of him had sprouted antlers before his very eyes. They made for a mighty table piece, and Will did not think that a meal had ever tasted so satisfying.

The third victim required a little more preparation. Assimilating into an aristocratic social circle had not been at all difficult; Hannibal was charming enough for the both of them, and Will stayed close to Hannibal’s side throughout the cripplingly dull etiquette of the events. Hannibal always looked proud of him whenever some rich man or woman fawned over Will, calling him _‘Delightful’_ and _‘Quite the catch’_ without an ounce of premonition that they may, in fact, become the catch. Will learned how those types admire Hannibal, too. Hannibal is handsome and witty and miles more intelligent than any of them. It put Will on edge whenever one of them became too flirty with Hannibal, despite the pair of them having been in attendance under the ruse of husbands. Will had picked the victim that time. A woman too rich and too self-important and far too interested in Hannibal. Will had killed that one. Hannibal had called him _‘beautiful’_ afterward and Will could see a singular pride and overwhelming adoration in Hannibal’s eyes. Hannibal had appeared none the wiser to the reason behind Will’s choice. Will did not tell him. He had not yet even told Hannibal that he loved him. He was not about to admit to Hannibal that he had found that did not like people rivalling him for Hannibal’s attention.

The fourth kill was more of an opportunity for Will to fish than for the pair of them to hunt. It went very much the same as the previous occasion; join a social circle, pick out one that seemed more judgmental, arrogant and unbearable than the rest, and then get to work to lure them in. Hannibal had gone in on his own first, to assimilate to the crowd, scout, prepare and set the trap, and then Will was introduced as his husband, or rather, the bait. And oh, did the fish swarm to Will. _“They are intrigued by you. You enchant them.”_ Hannibal told Will affectionately after the first time Will was introduced to them. It did not take long for one gossiping ‘intellectual’ to stand out, and he had more than a keen interest in Will. So Will had begun to reel him in, step by step, and then asked him round for dinner. _“My husband and I would love to have you for dinner.”_ Will had stabbed him through the eye at the same time as Hannibal had slashed the man’s throat with his steak knife. Although they both knew that the meat was not fish, it was Will’s catch, and Will ate it as such.

Those hunts had gone without error. This current one however, their fifth, is not going well at all. The reason? The reason is the woman (who, Will is particularly grieved about, is not the actual target this time) who has taken a liking to Hannibal. That would be no issue at all to Will, if Hannibal didn’t seem so damn intrigued by her as well.

Will slams in to the house, ahead of Hannibal, who is hot on his heels. Will is angry. Angrier than he has been in a long time.

“Will.” Hannibal’s voice is hard and cold.

“What?” Will snaps at him, removing his coat, unwrapping his scarf, and throwing them both in the direction of the hat stand in the hall.

“Do not take that tone with me.” Hannibal’s voice is not raised as Will’s is, but that by no means means that he is not angry. There is fury in his calmness. Will can feel it almost tangible in the air. “Your behaviour tonight was unacceptable.”

Will turns toward him, sneering in his faux-innocence, “What behaviour was that?”

“Allowing that man – our intended victim, no less – to touch you in that manner in public whilst you were in attendance with your _husband._ ”

“But you aren’t my husband.” Will says. He stands his ground and watches unblinkingly and unflinchingly as Hannibal stalks towards him until they are chest-to-chest. “Are you Hannibal?”

Hannibal’s eyes are dark maroon flint, flashing warningly, “In their eyes, you are my husband. And you will behave accordingly. You are supposed to _tempt_ the prey, not let it…” Hannibal looks lost for words for a moment - very unlike him - “… _Crawl…_ ” he spits, “…all over you. You followed to our plan so perfectly last time. What makes this occasion so difficult for you?” It is not asked kindly. It is asked cruelly, like Will is not intelligent enough to follow the rules. Hannibal’s rules.

“And what about the woman you were allowing to _crawl_ all over you?” Will snaps, “I am surprised you even noticed what I was doing, you being so infatuated with Miss Ellis.”

Hannibal looks startled for a moment, and Will realises that Hannibal maybe had not even noticed Miss Ellis’ attentions, his encouraging of them, and most significantly, what those attentions had been doing to Will.

“I enjoy conversation with Miss Ellis.” Hannibal says.

“And I was enjoying Mr Tate’s conversation. Though, you’re right, he was a bit forward. If you had not cut in as you had…” Colin Tate’s hand had been on Will’s waist when Will had felt Hannibal’s hand on the back of his neck. Hannibal had made apologies to Colin for them having to leave. Hannibal’s voice had been so overpolite and his hand so firm in its possessive grip on Will’s neck that Will knew he was in trouble. The car ride home had been made in silence, anger growing on each side. “…I think he was a moment from offering that the pair of us go somewhere, and well, you were so distracted by Miss Ellis, I would have had to have dealt with him on my own.”

“When you say ‘dealt’ with him.” Hannibal’s voice and expression were ice. “You mean that you would have had to kill him.”

“I don’t know.” Will’s lip curls. “Did I?”

Then next thing Will knows, he is being slammed up against the nearest wall. Hannibal’s expression is not ice anymore, he is burning, and he snarls in Will’s face as Will finds his hands caught in one of Hannibal’s, and his neck being squeezed by the other.

Will struggles immediately, “Let me go.” Will snaps. He does not think Hannibal will kill him. They have come too far. Hannibal will not want to be alone. But Hannibal’s heart scorned is a dangerous thing. Abigail’s slit throat and a bloodied ‘Broken Heart’ to call Will to Italy is enough for Will to know that Hannibal’s feelings are not to be trifled with. Will has done just that.  “Hannibal.” Will gasps, struggling to take in air from the hand clamped around his neck.

“You would not have touched him.” Hannibal growls, “You would not have let him touch you.”

“I said.” Will bites out, “Let me go.” He twists in Hannibal’s grip again but Hannibal shoves a thigh up between his own, and Will is suddenly very aware that he has been rendered completely immobile by Hannibal’s superior strength. He sometimes forgets Hannibal’s power. Hannibal could snap him like a twig if he wished to.

Will sees the second Hannibal comes to the same conclusion; that Will is going nowhere without Hannibal’s allowance, and his eyes darken. He is breathing heavily and staring down at Will with such intensity that Will cannot help but glare back.

There is something else Will has also just become very aware of. He is suddenly very, very aroused.

Hannibal is too, Will can feel him hardening, and Hannibal must be able to feel Will’s own erection against his thigh, if he can’t already see arousal in Will’s eyes.

“So, darling,” Hannibal asks him, still livid - controlled fury - but he’s intrigued now too. “How do you plan to get out of this one?” Hannibal’s curiosity to test Will has cost him so much in the past, that Will will not be backing down from this so easily.

Hannibal has shaped him as his creature, yes. But this creature is no longer afraid to bite.


	4. Chapter 4

Hannibal and Will stand at a standstill. Stand at a checkmate of Hannibal’s advantage (a summary of the majority of their entire relationship, really).

Hannibal’s still got his hand around Will’s throat. Will’s wheezing. Hannibal flexes his fingers, but he does not relent. Not yet.

In the early days, years ago now, when Will still had not the slightest clue that he was attending regular appointments with the Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal had considered how best to kill Will Graham if he ever figured it out. He had imagined – fantasized, even – overpowering Will, straddling him, squeezing the life from him and watching the struggle, the frantic, feeble fight with hands and nails. He would witness the slow surrender of Will’s body to stronger hands, the wide eyes staring up at him, hating him, pleading with him, finally _seeing_ him, feet kicking uselessly at the floor. He would watch those blue, bloodshot eyes go out, feel Will’s twitchy, flighty body finally going still beneath him, hear that final breath escape air-starved lips. He would then have taken and eaten a piece of Will; cherished something that had not been able to flourish. Even back then, Hannibal had planned to take Will’s heart. He wonders if he had subconsciously known, even then.

But that was before Hannibal’s interest in Will had taken its surprising turn. It was before Hannibal’s fondness for Will had developed into something inconvenient and new. It was before Hannibal changed Will Graham, and before Will Graham undeniably changed him. Will is not just a remarkable curiosity anymore. He is far more. He is everything.

Which is what made his blatant flirtation with Mr Tate that evening even more wounding.

Will’s wrists are twisting in the grip of Hannibal’s other hand, raised up above his head. Will stares up at him, angry but a little desperate, now, and Hannibal immediately relaxes his grip on Will’s throat. Will slumps forward into Hannibal’s shoulder, spluttering and gasping.

“Will…” Hannibal begins, concerned, and his hand relaxes its grip on Will’s wrists, just a fraction.

Will, however, has apparently been waiting for it. The moment he feels Hannibal’s hold give, Will snatches his hands down, and the next thing Hannibal knows, his jaw is stinging from a weakened, but still effective, punch. Hannibal’s head snaps back, but Hannibal has hunted far longer than Will, and he snatches Will back in his hold in an instant, pinning Will’s hands either side of his head with his own.

Will squirms in Hannibal’s grasp and snarls at him. His feral behaviour is rather captivating, and Hannibal smiles at him, a little.

Will abruptly stops fighting. “You find this amusing.” He says. His voice is cold and angry.

Hannibal is finding this a number of things; arousing, for one, and so is Will, if the hard length pressed against Hannibal’s leg is anything to go by. The fact that this whole scenario has excited Will is something Hannibal mentally stores away.

“You are quite aware, Will, that I do not find this amusing in the slightest.” His flicks his gaze over Will’s face, sees the coiled anger in Will’s eyes and discovers himself eager for the outburst. “Are we going to discuss this like adults?”

Will glares at him. “What is there to discuss Hannibal?” His throat rasps a little, and Hannibal wonders if maybe he held Will’s throat too tight and a little too long. He does not want to break his boy, after all, now that he finally has him for his own. “I let Mr Tate get too friendly, maybe, but it was no different from how you were acting with Miss Ellis.”

Hannibal realises something, then. Something he had missed. He had been so furious turning around to see that unworthy wretch standing so close to Will, bending his head and speaking so intimately into Will’s ear, that he had completely missed the real intention behind Will’s actions. “You were jealous.” Hannibal says. He is surprised and flattered all at once. Surprised that Will cares about Hannibal’s attentions so much that he became jealous when Hannibal spoke to somebody else, and flattered that Will was jealous enough about it to try and make Hannibal jealous in return. “You were jealous that I was speaking to Miss Ellis.”

“Yes.” Will spits it out, like he hates admitting it. “I’m jealous. You weren’t just speaking to her. You were intrigued by her. I know you were; you had that look on your face.”

Hannibal cannot deny it, because it is not a lie. Francesca Ellis is bright and yet unassumingly charming. Hannibal has an ability to decide within a minute whether a mind is going to tempt him or not. Will Graham fitted that bill within seconds. Franklyn Friodeveaux immediately did not. Margot Verger’s darkness encouraged him. Mason Verger’s repulsed him. It was a quick and easy assessment to know if his interest had been piqued. Francesca Ellis has piqued his interest, a slight distraction to Will and Hannibal’s pursuit of Mr Tate, but Hannibal has always allowed himself to indulge, and it helps to keep up appearances, to make conversation, of course.

“She is nothing to concern yourself with Will,” Hannibal traces his thumb across the underside of the wrist he stills renders motionless. Will’s jaw moves, and Hannibal watches it ripple beneath his skin as he clenches it.

Will scoffs bitterly. “I shouldn’t be concerned at all. I shouldn’t be jealous. Should I? Not for the man that psychologically manipulated and tortured me; drove me to madness, drugged me, framed me, stabbed me, killed people I cared about, sent serial killers after me and my…” He stops before he says ‘family’. Probably because Hannibal has pushed himself right up into his face.

Hannibal is seething again. Will’s attempts to anger Hannibal in the face of his jealousy isn’t so flattering anymore. And Hannibal’s displeasure at seeing Will and Colin Tate so intimate in conversation renews itself again.

“…after me.” Will corrects, eyes darting submissively away from Hannibal’s for a moment, before returning with new vigour, “Why should I be jealous because of that man?”

Hannibal finds himself pushed several paces back when Will abruptly shoves with his arms, despite his hands still being in Hannibal’s grip. Hannibal and Will struggle again for a moment, before Hannibal puts his strength into overpowering Will and spinning him round, pushing him bodily into the wall face-first, so Will has to turn his head to avoid cracking his nose. Hannibal presses up Will’s back, pins Will’s arms again.

“I don’t know Will, tell me. This man sounds like the devil. Why should you be jealous?” Hannibal snarls into the hair above Will’s ear.

“Because I’m twisted,” Will growls back, “Because after everything you’ve done to me, the things you have done _for_ me mean so much more, matters to me so much more.” He shoves back against Hannibal, but Hannibal stands solid, “Because I’m twisted. And you’re the cannibalistic serial killer I was supposed track down. And I love you regardless.”

Hannibal isn’t particularly sentimental, but he swears that his heart clenches, right at that moment. Will freezes the moment he realises what he said, sandwiched between Hannibal’s body and the wall.

Hannibal spins him back around, and Will stubbornly pushes against his chest, doesn’t look him in the eye.

“Will.” Hannibal commands, ducks his head, he needs to hear Will say it again. “Look at me. Look at me and tell me again.”

Will isn’t as angry anymore. He looks nervous, upset. He bites his bottom lip and finally, finally meets Hannibal’s eye.

“I love you.” Will says. He doesn’t sound defeatist, he just sounds openly honest.

Anger dissipates at lightning speed. Hannibal gathers Will up in his arms and kisses him. Will meets him eagerly, and without hesitation, mouth opening, and his kiss is hungry and passionate. He always tastes so good. Will’s newly freed hands lift to graze through Hannibal’s hair.

Will loves him. Hannibal had thought it probable for some time now, but to have it voiced to him; to have Will not only in love with him but possessively jealous for Hannibal’s attentions, is more than Hannibal could ever have hoped.

Hannibal is still rock hard from their heated exchange, and his physical dominance over Will in those long moments had aroused them both. So he decides to test it further. He takes Will’s wrists again, less menacingly but firm enough to maintain control, and pushes him back against the wall again. His thigh slots back between Will’s legs, which part to accommodate him, and Will’s breath stutters out as his back hits the wall.

“Hann…” Will croaks, when Hannibal presses his thigh up and hard against Will’s crotch. Hannibal kisses him again, a hungry clash of lips and teeth and tongue. It is frantic in a way the pair of them have not really been sexually, yet, but Hannibal is more than willing to try it now. To show Will now.

Hannibal drops Will’s hands and moves to lift Will’s thighs. He lifts him up easily. Will’s legs immediately wrap around Hannibal, and Hannibal pushes his hips in. They both release long, animalistic groans, and rut against each other, Will watches him, eyes only slightly parted, pupils blown, his mouth open and reddened from kisses.

“I can show you.” Hannibal offers eventually, nipping at Will’s lips, and pulling away as Will moves to meet his mouth properly. “I can show you how much I want you, if you still doubt how much I do.”

“Show me.”

They only just make it to the bedroom. Hannibal sheds their clothes in a carelessness that exposes how badly he wants to be inside Will, to claim him. When they finally kill Mr Tate, he will take his hands so that they can never touch Will again. He takes Will from behind and he fucks him hard and fast, unlike any way they have done before. He pants into the back of Will’s neck, drags his nails down Will’s spine, grasps bruises into Will’s hips, and Will moans louder than he ever has before.

They collapse onto the mattress afterward, slick with sweat, and Will moves to lie half on top of him, trailing open mouthed kisses across Hannibal’s chest as it heaves.

They lie there quietly for a while, catching their breath. Hannibal contemplates the argument they were having not an hour before. It would always end that way, he supposes, an argument between them; either they would end up in bed together and grow stronger from it, or one would destroy the other and subsequently ruin himself. Two extremes. One or the other. But Hannibal knows he cannot be without Will now, and Will cannot be without him, so as long as it remains the former outcome, they can only become more and more indestructible.

“Hannibal?” Will murmurs. He’s drawing shapes over Hannibal’s chest as he speaks.

“Yes?”

“What would happen if, one day, you find a mind that you find more interesting than mine?”

“It would not matter.”

“Would it not?” Will does not sound convinced. “Because you thought Bedelia was intriguing, once. Look what has happened to her.”

Ah. So that is what is bothering Will about Miss Ellis. For all Will has insisted that Bedelia’s words have not affected him, apparently they must have struck at least one nerve. Hannibal had heard the entire exchange, and the words she had spoken had been ruthless. Ruthless, because even Hannibal did not know if he could deny them entirely.

 _“I am going to go out on a limb here, pardon the pun,”_ She had said, “ _and say that you have no idea what Hannibal will do with you if he is one day inclined so. He cares for me differently to you, yes, but he has only taken a leg from me. He feels hunger and love for you in entirety. If you leave him as I did, he will not just take a leg from you. He will take everything.”_

Hannibal doubts Will will want to leave him, now. But if he did, Hannibal knows he would never be able to let Will leave. Even if Will got away, Hannibal would find him. He would track him down. He would want revenge. He would not let anyone else have Will. He knows this already. But would he be able to kill Will? Take his life from him? He hopes he is never forced to find out.

“You are not going to leave me,” Hannibal says, steadily, confidently, eyeing Will closely. Will does not stop tracing his patterns over Hannibal’s skin. “And I would never leave you willingly.”

“But what if you found someone who intrigued you and you knew that you could change them like you changed me, that you could pick them apart and put them back together again? What if you could have more than one teacup? You would have another teacup if you could, wouldn’t you, Hannibal? If you know that you possess my heart already and that I will not go, you could collect another.”

Hannibal pauses. He has spent so long battling with his infatuation with Will, that he has not ever imagined a scenario in which he has Will, and then finds another like Will. He knows that now he has Will, and he will not be letting him go. He cannot be without him. But that is not what Will is asking. He is asking if, one day, Hannibal finds another person he wants, would he pursue them as he pursued Will. The scenario is not much of a concern, he decides quickly, because he doubts he will ever meet anyone he finds as remarkable as Will. It surprises Hannibal that these concerns have even had chance to take root in Will’s mind and gain a hold.

“As we have just determined, people like Miss Ellis, Bedelia…not one of them will ever match you, or challenge you for my heart. I will not leave you, and I do not want anyone else. I will not want anyone else. I am yours.”

“I love you.” Will whispers. His fingers still in their movement.

Hannibal wraps his arms tighter around Will, and presses a kiss into his hair, “I have loved you a long, long time, my darling Will.”

*

Hannibal wakes to a golden morning, and Will kissing steadily down his chest.

“Good morning, Will.” Hannibal arches lazily into Will’s lips as they pause to encircle his nipple. Will only hums in reply.

He lies pliant and allows Will to explore and take his time, despite Will being well accustomed to his body by now. This morning is different however. Will has always treated him in these moments with something akin to awe, but Hannibal cannot remember an occasion where devotion has been so present and strong in Will’s gaze. Will crawls back up to Hannibal eventually, cupping a hand behind Hannibal’s head, and Hannibal opens his mouth under Will’s; achingly slow and languid kisses, until Will pulls back to trace his other hand across Hannibal’s features. He feels the feather-light touch ghost along his cheekbones, down his nose, across his lips.

“You are unlike any creature on this earth,” Will mumbles, more to himself than to Hannibal, it seems, but Hannibal takes it very much as a compliment. “Beautiful.” Will murmurs a moment later, a finger tapping at Hannibal’s chin and then his lips.

Hannibal moves finally to lay a palm on Will’s neck, and Will makes a noise of complaint. Hannibal removes his hand immediately, and finally notices the bruises he left on Will’s neck the night before, and now he thinks of it, Will’s voice is still a little rough. Hannibal checks Will’s neck methodically, pressing here and there to ensure he is not too badly injured, “Sorry.” Hannibal gives.

Will snorts, “No you’re not. Not really. Neither am I.” He brushes Hannibal’s concern and his hands away and leans down to kiss him again. “Hannibal.” Will asks him, “I wanted to ask you something.”

Hannibal looks up at Will and sees heat in his gaze. Will seems to be bold now that he has been able to confess his love. Hannibal likes confidence on Will. It suits him. “Ask it,” Hannibal will give him anything, they both know it.

“We have never…I have never…” He shakes his head. The following coy look is very endearing, and a complete contrast to what words come next, “I want to fuck you.” Will says, “We don’t feel complete, yet, and I want to be inside you. Please.”

Hannibal will certainly give him that. He never thought Will would ask him for this, having seemed perfectly content as they have been. He’s getting hard at the very idea of it. “Yes.” And his voice comes out far deeper than it had before.

Will smiles; a shy yet smug little thing that Hannibal kisses from his lips.

“I’ll take you through it.” Hannibal promises.

Will nods in thanks, and his eyes are almost black.

Will does not need much guidance. He seems to have remembered every little thing Hannibal has ever done for him whilst preparing him, and Hannibal lets himself lose his control, a little bit, under Will’s long, talented fingers.

They lie on their sides – it is too early for anything particularly energetic, particularly after the ferocity of the night before – Will spooned behind Hannibal. Will has an arm under Hannibal’s head, his forehead is at Hannibal’s shoulder, presumably as he stares down at his hand working in and out of Hannibal’s body. Hannibal, meanwhile, is almost drowning in the sensations, the feel of being opened up for the first time in years, being opened up by _Will,_ with Will panting in his ear. Will lubes up and enters him slowly, slowly, his arm flung around Hannibal, fingers splayed across Hannibal’s belly. They move slowly together. Hannibal moves his hand back to press against Will’s backside, urging him to move faster. Will seems encouraged by the groans that escape unbidden from Hannibal’s lips and seems to know without words what Hannibal wants him to do. Will sucks at Hannibal’s neck, presumably to leave a bruise of his own, and Hannibal’s morning grows brighter, much whiter, as Will consistently hits that spot inside of him, bringing him closer and closer to release.

Will seems to be monitoring the noises Hannibal makes, because just as Hannibal feels the need to come, but is left teetering on the very edge, Will asks him “Would you like me to touch you Hannibal?” His voice is dark and silk and Hannibal closes his eyes against the very sound of it.

“Yes.” Hannibal says, “Yes, Will.”

“Say please.” He can feel the smile against his skin. But Hannibal will not deny Will anything.

Hannibal shudders, and it ripples through Will behind him, “Please.”

Will immediately takes Hannibal’s cock in hand, and Hannibal fucks up into the firm circle of Will’s fingers only twice before he comes. Will follows a moment later. Will breaths into his skin as they come down, kisses at the bruise he left at Hannibal’s neck.

Will had been right. They had not had full completion of each other until this moment.

Now they know what it feels like to truly belong to each other.

And, as Hannibal had told Will the night before, there isn’t room for anybody else.

*

They kill Colin Tate. They lure him out and bring him down together.

Hannibal takes Colin’s hands, just like he had decided he would. He cuts them off before Colin is dead.

“So you cannot touch my husband again.” He explains simply after the man has regained consciousness and stopped screaming into the gag.

“You made him quite jealous.” Will says to Colin mock-conspiratorially from where he is perched on the table, swinging his legs.

When Hannibal finally gives Will a nod, Will obediently leans forward, as if to kiss Colin’s cheek, and then slits his throat. The blood sprays across his face.

It makes Hannibal proud to see Will coming into his own. He really is a natural at this, just as Hannibal always knew he would be. Hannibal helps Will to clean the blood off his face, afterward, holding his chin up and cleaning him carefully.

When Hannibal is cooking a piece of Colin that night, Will comes into the kitchen and leans against the counter next to the hob, watching him work. “Can I try a piece?”

It is the first time Will has taken interest in the meat before it is presented as an intricate meal and under moniker in front of him, and Hannibal hides his delight at this as he skewers a square of meat, already well cooked through, from the sauce it is slow-cooking in. He holds his other hand underneath to catch any drips of sauce and blows on it lightly.

“Careful,” Hannibal says, “It’s hot.”

Will nods and takes the meat between his teeth. He chews it thoughtfully. Hannibal watches. Will swallows. Hannibal waits. Will smiles.

“Delicious.” Will says. “I do not know how you do it sometimes, making someone so tasteless so tasty.”

It is the first time Will has spoken about the meat for what it is. Hannibal leans in to kiss him, and samples the sauce on Will’s tongue.

“Needs more salt.” Hannibal decides to himself when he pulls away, unable to stop the grin that pulls at his lips.

Will laughs. “I will leave you to it, chef.”

Hannibal watches Will wander out the kitchen. And realises he has just witnessed Will blossom once more. His transformation is on the verge of completion. He has been watching him evolve and grow step by step, and it has been a beautiful thing to watch. The finished Will Graham will be a terrible, wonderful thing indeed.

*

The next evening, Hannibal and Will sit together by the fire in the lounge. Hannibal sits in one armchair, and Will in another close by.

They sit quiet and comfortable, until Will speaks up, “I dreamt of the Dragon last night.”

Hannibal had stirred during the night to find Will awake beside him, panting in the dark, skin sticky with perspiration against his own. He had been almost able to taste Will’s fear, so had hushed him back to sleep, holding him close, murmuring anything and everything in his mother tongue, which he has found Will finds calming.

“He still comes to you.” Hannibal says, now. It is not a question. Hannibal knows Will is struggling with the beast he most recently looked through the eyes of.

“Frequently.”

Hannibal stands to move his chair around a little more so that it faces Will’s armchair. It is a much cosier likeness of their old psychiatrist-patient format.

“And what did you see? In your dream last night?”

“I had the dragon’s wings. I nearly always do; they grow out of my shoulder blades and they are big and strong. And scales…” Will’s hand flies up to touch the scar on his cheek, “the marks he left crack open to bear scales, sometimes. Last night, I was strung up, pinned like a butterfly to the board of an enthusiast. Don’t you think that’s odd?” Will asks, suddenly going off tangent, “that a person who finds a butterfly or a moth beautiful would kill it and pin it up forever and ever.” Will makes an odd gesture with his hands, crossing them over and bringing them together in a childish shadow-puppet of a butterfly, or other winged creature. Will stares at them for a moment, distracted, and Hannibal allows himself a moment to regard this unusual behaviour, before he clears his throat.

“But did you not make a firefly to hang up?”

Will shakes his head, and the moment breaks, his hands fall back into his lap like he had never done it at all. He is looking at Hannibal again. “Not the same. He was a low creature changed to something more. He wasn’t a beautiful thing killed and stuck for beauty’s sake. Even you would not collect a selection of butterflies, when you catch and transform ruder insects.”

It is an interesting argument. Hannibal thinks of James Gray and his mural of the human eye, with an exquisite pallet of skin colour. It is conversation for another night. Dragons interest him more than butterflies and moths tonight. “You were describing your dream?”

“I couldn’t move.” Will says. “I was pinned to the wall by the spikes of antlers and I was all alone, helpless and hairless and scaled and just, hanging there. I’ve never felt so openly vulnerable.”

Will does not look vulnerable. His dreams do not frighten him to speak of as they once did. The initial fear upon waking from last night is long gone. He is not afraid anymore to tell Hannibal what he sees when he dreams. And what he sees when he isn’t.

“And how do you feel now?” Hannibal asks.

“Now that I am out of it,” Will pauses, thinks about it, “Infinitely stronger.”

Hannibal would not lie and say he was not intrigued by the image Will had painted. In fact it captured him.

Two nights later he drew it:

The wings were black, stretched open, tight and taut, and pinned that way. He drew Will between them, splayed almost like Christ on the cross, his hair shorn away. He took great care in deepening shadow, the play of light on Will’s body making him look extremely vulnerable, whilst the shadows and strength of the lithe muscle in his body suggested a concealed power not yet finding its feet, or indeed, wings.

He has almost finished it, when Will comes up behind him with two cups of tea. Before Hannibal can conceal it or turn the page to another drawing, Will has looked over his shoulder and seen it. Hannibal waits for Will to be unhappy with him for picturing Will’s distress. Will simply cocks his head as he regards it and says “Yes, it looked a lot like that.”

*

Will picks up a stray dog at their next house in New Hampshire.

Will spots it hanging around within days of moving into the house. He must immediately start his attempts to lure it in, because two days later the dog becomes a frequent visitor. Three weeks after that, he becomes a permanent fixture.

“Please, Hannibal.” Will begs. He is petting the dog, which is a handsome looking thing for a mongrel; long haired and sandy coloured, with a white belly and a thin white line that runs down between its eyes and encircles its muzzle. Will informs him that the dog has some golden retriever and some collie in it, and that it reminds Will a little bit of Winston and a little bit of Charlie. Hannibal never learned the names of all seven of Will’s herd, and although he thinks he can picture Winston, Charlie is lost in a blur of black, brown and white fur. Whatever this dog is, it is not purebred. But it does have a nice face and almost extravagantly fluffy ears. Will is infatuated with it.

And when Will and the dog look up at Hannibal with almost ridiculously identical begging looks on their faces, Hannibal gives in.

Will’s greatest love in the world before Hannibal was his dogs. They are still his greatest love, but he appears to have also found room for Hannibal. Hannibal knows how Will appreciates (and wants) family. Hannibal took his adoptive daughter from him, but Hannibal can give him a dog. If Hannibal gives Will all that he wants, then Will will never know or want for anything else but this.

“You may keep it.” Hannibal says.

Will’s face lights up in a grin and he jumps to his feet to press a kiss to Hannibal’s cheek, “You won’t regret it.” He turns to the dog and pets its head, “You’re ours now, boy, if you want to be.”

After the fall from the cliff, Will did not say ‘ours’ for a long time; it was always ‘your house’ or ‘your bed’. It was always Hannibal’s things, and Will separated himself from them. It hadn’t been until recently that Will had begun to say ‘ours’ and ‘we’ and ‘us’. Will appears not to have noticed this change, or if he has, he has kept it to himself. But Hannibal has noticed. He has noticed and he cherishes it. They are a team now. A family. This new addition Hannibal can learn to tolerate if it means that this is the case.

“What shall we call him?” Will asks, looking back up at Hannibal, ruffling his hands on either side of the dog’s head. The dog wags its tail happily.

“You want me to decide?”

Will shrugs, as if this is not a big deal. This is a dog. To Will it will always be a very big deal. Hannibal finds himself oddly flattered. “If you want.” Will says.

Hannibal looks at the dog, studies its face, and the dog looks back. “Samson.” Hannibal finally decides.

Will’s grin almost splits his face, “I like it.” He turns to talk to the dog, “Hello Sam.”

Hannibal refrains from rolling his eyes at the inevitable abbreviation, and opens the door for Will and Samson to enter the house.

It turns out that Samson not only loves Will, but he likes Hannibal too. He sits beside Hannibal’s armchair in the evenings, sometimes, and lays his head in Hannibal’s lap. There have been numerous occasions that Hannibal has looked up and found Will smiling fondly at them into his hand, and Hannibal realises that he has unknowingly been petting Samson’s head.

Samson is obedient and is quickly trained where he needs to be. He obeys Hannibal more than Will, because Will is more indulgent. And Hannibal now witnesses first-hand how much more Will cares for canines than for himself; giving Samson handmade meals. Will refuses outright to feed Samson anything out of a can, and Hannibal finds himself inclined to agree. Anything out of a can is not often worth eating.

Samson sometimes sleeps at the foot of their bed. Hannibal believes Will sometimes encourages him up there once Hannibal is asleep.

Hannibal takes Will out into town and gets Samson the necessary vaccinations, buys Samson the best bed, collar and identification tag that money can buy.

Hannibal comes to love Samson’s fluffy ears. And the rest of him, he supposes.

*

Hannibal takes Will to the opera for the first time. Will does not seem particularly enthused by opera, but he says he wants to go because Hannibal does. They drive the five-plus hours to New York especially, after Hannibal finally convinces Will that Samson will be just fine on his own for a night, and pays for a hotel suite for the evening.

Hannibal holds his arm out to Will as they enter the opera house and Will takes it. Will always initially stays close to Hannibal’s side at these types of event, always a little nervous and awkward in a social situation he is not used to, but he soon finds his confidence. Hannibal almost prefers it when Will stays close to him and looks to him when in conversation. Will looks wonderful in his suit, one Hannibal had had tailor made for him months ago, dashing and yet unassumingly so; Will is a man that captures attention.

Hannibal finds the opera invigorating, the performance immaculate. There is something about opera and classical music that rushes his blood in his veins, his heightened senses finding each moment of crescendo and diminuendo, staccato, vibrato, soprano and bass a rise and fall of pleasure. Although his focus is on the stage, he keeps note of the movement, or lack thereof, of Will beside him; Will does not fidget like Hannibal expected he might and sits perfectly still and relaxed until the interval.

They make their way out into the hall during the interval, and Will holds the programme open, perusing it and pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Did you enjoy it?” Hannibal asks him.

“Hmm.” Will hums, absorbed in what he’s reading, before looking up at Hannibal apologetically, “I like the music. I’m a little lost in the story though.” He shrugs, “I got a little lost but because I’m feeling it through you, I’m enjoying it much more than I thought I would.”

Hannibal smiles at him softly, because of this man that is now his, that cares how Hannibal feels, who now wants to feel how Hannibal feels.

“I apologise for interrupting the two of you,” A voice interrupts, and Hannibal only just remembers not to glare at the woman, looking away from Will and smiling at her.

“Not at all.”

“The pair of you look so darling, I wondered if you would agree to have your photograph taken for press of our opening night.” The woman says. Hannibal looks down at the big camera in her hands.

Will immediately catches Hannibal’s hand, “I’m sorry,” He says, with an embarrassed smile that only Hannibal can see through, “I’m not much one for pictures.”

Hannibal steps a little in front of Will, leaning to speak to the camerawoman, “I apologise, Miss, my husband is a little camera-shy.”

“He shouldn’t be.” She says with a kind smile, but nods, “Thank you for your time, gentlemen.” And she moves away.

“Dodged a bullet.” Will says, and Hannibal turns back to him.

“Quite true.” It has been a routine the pair of them have had to adopt on a couple of occasions now, to avoid photographs finding their way online or into the press, and into the hands of Jack Crawford. Hannibal slides Will’s glasses off and puts them in his pocket, “Shall we?” He asks, and follows Will back to their seats.

*

They meet a lull after that. No hunts planned, no dark nights of blood and steel. And whilst Hannibal is comfortable in the domesticity, now that he has seen glimpses of what Will can do, he longs for them to be able to hunt again, and really find a hunt worthy of their power. Everything thus far has seemed too easy. He wants a challenge for Will, he wants something more carnal. He wants to see the Will he saw on the clifftop with the Dragon, almost animal-like in its savagery, with gritted blood-stained teeth, ready to launch himself into a kill. He has not seen that creature properly since, and he hopes it’s only a matter of time, for it is one of the most beautiful things Hannibal has had the pleasure to witness.

Will has seemed content doting on Samson, and spending time with Hannibal, and has not seemed to miss the lack of hunt, the lack of blood and dancing on a razor edge.

Or so Hannibal thought.

The evening is quiet, and Hannibal sits pondering their next move, absently petting Samson’s head where it rests on his leg. A sharp whistle from Will calls Samson from Hannibal’s hand and away into the kitchen. Hannibal hears Will fawn over Samson, and feed him his dinner. The kitchen door shuts.

A moment later, Will stands in the doorway to the lounge.

“Hannibal?”

 “Mmm?” Hannibal asks. His eyes fall to the knife in Will’s hand. Hannibal’s skin chills for a second, until he sees the look in Will’s eyes. “Will?”

Will stalks forward and Hannibal sits back in his chair with bated breath, trusting Will enough now that he knows this is not threatening intent. He waits to see what will unfold from Will’s mind. Will comes to a stop right in front of him and he holds up the knife.

Hannibal stays silent as he watches the blade slice shallowly across the pad of Will’s thumb, blood blooming instantly around the sharp silver edge.

Will moves then, straddling Hannibal’s lap, and Hannibal pulls him in, eager for what Will will do next.

Will lifts his bleeding thumb to Hannibal’s mouth, and drags it across Hannibal’s bottom lip and down his chin. Hannibal cannot help but lick his lip afterward, tasting the copper red. He meets Will’s eyes and Will watches back, blue irises almost completely swallowed by darkness. Will lifts his thumb again and Hannibal parts his lips this time in anticipation, and Will does not disappoint. He smears the blood over Hannibal’s lips, before pushing it into his mouth, dragging the flat of his thumb down Hannibal’s tongue. Hannibal closes his mouth quickly so that it cannot leave. The taste of Will’s blood explodes on his tongue, rich and warm. He sucks it steadily, eyes still locked with Will’s.

“You say you like the taste of me.” Will’s voice is gravelled as he provides some kind of explanation. “And seeing as you can’t eat me like you first wanted (for which, I’ll be honest, I’m grateful) I thought I’d indulge you a little.”

Hannibal grazes his teeth across the cut and Will gasps.

“You like it?” Will asks.

Will knows Hannibal likes it. He will always crave more of Will and to taste him like this is as close as Hannibal will get to it. Hannibal hums, increasing the suction, tongue pressing up against the pad of Will’s thumb. Will moans softly and adjusts his position, so that his crotch is pressing more firmly against Hannibal’s. Hannibal groans and rocks his hips up, and Will takes the opportunity to remove his thumb.

Will appears to enjoy knives. Even before he used one to bring down the Dragon, and despite the use of knives to cut into Will’s own skin, Will seems to enjoy the intimacy of killing with a blade. Hannibal knows that feeling all too well. Will raises the blade in his hand now, and lays the flat of it against Hannibal’s cheek, along the edge of Hannibal’s cheekbone, presumably leaving a line of Will’s blood upon his skin. He turns it to the point, and traces it down to the corner of Hannibal’s mouth.

“Hannibal?”

“Yes?” Hannibal asks him, grasping Will’s other hand in his own and smearing Will’s thumb back across Will’s cheek. He likes the look of crimson on Will’s skin.

 “What would you do if I become too far away from what you foresaw? From your design?”

Will is watching him. It is most likely a genuine concern for Will (the directness of the question suggests it is something he has been thinking of) but he is masking it behind dark seductiveness. He is testing Hannibal’s loyalty to him, Hannibal’s devotion to his long foreseen image of Will’s potential.

Hannibal obliges him, “You would never become anything unexpected. Not to me.”

“And…” Will pauses. He bites his lip. The blade on Hannibal’s face falls as Will takes it away. “What if I fall too far into a darkness that’s not yours? What if I grow wings instead of antlers?” There’s a touch of concern this time. Will lets it bleed through.

“You are not the Dragon. And you are not the Chesapeake Ripper.” Hannibal cups the side of Will’s face, dragging his thumb back through the blood staining Will’s cheek. “You are your own creature. Vicious and bloody and powerful.”

“What if I become something I can’t control?” Will asks. The question is quiet, dark, but with that hint of fear that Hannibal had hoped Will would have lost by now.

“I will be there to help you control it.” Hannibal promises. He looks into Will’s eyes and lifts up Will’s bloodied hand. There are trails of scarlet running down Will’s palm and wrist. Hannibal lets himself taste once more, laying the flat of his tongue on Will’s forearm and tracing the trail of blood back up his hand to the cut. It must smear more blood on his face, but neither of them pay it any notice. “Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?” Hannibal asks, pressing a kiss to Will’s palm.

Will moves, and Hannibal follows him up. He lays a hand on the small of Will’s back as he guides him toward the kitchen. Samson is waiting at the door and the minute it opens he passes their legs and back towards the warmth of the lounge. Will sits at the table, whilst Hannibal finds the first aid kit he keeps in one of the higher cupboards. He sits opposite Will and holds out his hand, and Will offers it to him.

Hannibal is careful as he cleans the cut, which is shallow enough not to be cause of much concern (Will knows what he is doing with a blade), treats it, and begins to bandage it lightly.

Will watches Hannibal work for a while, before he asks, “If I felt like I was losing myself and I wanted to give it all up, would you let me?”

No, he wouldn’t let him. “You don’t want to give it up.”

Will ignores the fact that Hannibal did not give a direct answer, just as Hannibal ignored the purpose of the question, “I am our design.” He says. Hannibal looks up and Will is watching him, steady, accepting of what he is.

“Exactly. You are still evolving and adapting, and whatever you become will strengthen your design, not tarnish it.”

Will ponders this. Hannibal watches and waits; he does it a lot where Will is concerned, waiting to let him make his own decisions, even if Hannibal is still lightly pulling on the strings. “If I became your actual husband, then I would be conforming further to our design.” Will considers aloud.

Hannibal is almost stunned to silence by Will’s words; he sounds intrigued, rather than teasing. Will is watching him back, clearly curious to what Hannibal will say.

He stares Will evenly in the eye, “Would you like to be my husband?”

Will looks thoughtful for a moment. He turns his hand in Hannibal’s, which has long since stopped bandaging it. “The thought is not intolerable.” Will says, dancing his fingers over Hannibal’s, before he glances back up again with a playful smirk, “Or we could just keep it professional. God forbid we become too friendly. Compassion is an inconvenient thing.”

Hannibal grins at him. “Just as well I don’t find you that interesting.”

Will stands and leans across the table, ghosts a kiss across Hannibal’s lips, and there is so much promise in his boy; as a dangerous companion, and a lifelong commitment.

Will smiles at him. Assures him; “You will.”

And yes. Hannibal will. Hannibal does. Hannibal always has done.


	5. Chapter 5

“ _You were supposed to leave.”_

_“We couldn’t leave without you.”_

The hand on Will’s face is warm against skin chilled by rain and anguished guilt.                

The knife that follows is cold, glinting ice. Sharp, agonising. It feels like betrayal.

Whose betrayal it most represents is not entirely clear.

_“Do you understand?”_

He shakes his head. He does not understand.

Blood is pattering on the floor, a fall that Will cannot stop.

_“The place was made for all of us, together.”_

He does not understand.

 _“We couldn’t leave without you.”_ Hannibal had said.

Where would they have gone?

Will slides to the floor, clutching his stomach as though by doing so he can keep the blood inside, stop his life from slipping through his fingers, wet and sticky and dark.

_“I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift. But you didn’t want it.”_

_“Didn’t I?”_

Will hunted the gift, discovered the gift, explored it, hated it, loved it. He did not want the surprise. He relished the surprise. He fears the game it brings and he enjoys it too. He has treasured it. He has wanted to discard it. He cannot let it go. Tugged this way and that, the joints of it thin, the lines so blurred so as to be ignorant of the rules. He had promised Jack and he had promised Hannibal. Will thought he could play the game and use the gift. He thought he could fix everything.

In the end he has just broken it.

And Hannibal has long since broken him.

_We couldn’t leave without you._

Wherever Hannibal and Abigail are going, Will will not be going with them.

Unless...

_“No. No. Don’t.”_

Hannibal is beckoning Abigail to him. Will’s mind supplies a spray of blood as a knife glides through the flesh of her throat. It does not require much imagination. He has seen it before.

Hannibal will do a better job than Garret Jacob Hobbs. It will be more final. Hannibal will take her away from him again, after giving him such a brief respite from the crushing guilt. He can taste the ear lodged in his throat. Or maybe it is just the taste of his own blood.

Abigail’s blood lands on his face, and Hannibal watches Will’s reaction with distraught, rejected, vengeful eyes.

There is a pool of his blood on the floor that he slips under, scrabbling desperately at consciousness to keep himself above water. It feels strange against his cheek, like half of a scarlet mask that brings to the surface (rather than hides) what Hannibal has turned him into.

It’s raining outside. Maybe if it was raining in here it would wash the blood-mask away. Or it could assist to tarnish him more. But it is Hannibal stepping out and away into the rain, past the bloom wilting outside framed by sparkling shards. Will is too busy trying to hold Abigail’s neck together.

Somethings shifts in the room when Hannibal leaves it. The room becomes clouded, hazy, and Will attempts to drag himself out of Hannibal’s Baltimore kitchen.

Because he is pretty sure Hannibal does not live in Baltimore anymore.

He hangs in a semi-aware state, stuck between worlds; one dark and peaceful, the other pristine white splashed with scarlet red and he hates it there.

Abigail looks at him, neck gaping, already dead, and asks, _“Why did you not want to come with us?”_

 _Because I’m afraid we will begin to enjoy this._ Will thinks. _I’m afraid we will let ourselves become like him._

 _“It doesn’t matter.”_ He says instead. Blood dribbles out of his mouth and down his chin. _“I am not leaving you again.”_

 _“But I’ve already left.”_ Abigail tells him.

There is blood seeping out from under the pantry door, and Will vaguely wonders if that’s where Jack is. There is the stag in the room too, lying on its side and dying, heaving breaths. Will stretches an arm out to try and touch the antlers. He cannot reach.

He sinks down, down into the blood, and it tastes like sea water, icy bitter salt. He thinks he must be drowning. But then, then he is flying. He rises out of the red pool, alight like a firefly, spreading translucent wings. But when he attempts to take off, the wings change within a beat, and they are the dark leathery sails of a Dragon.

_“Did you believe you could change me, the way I’ve changed you?”_

_“I already did.”_

*

When Will jerks out of the dream he is not soaked in rain water and blood, but it is cold. The world he re-enters is not stark white, it is dark, but it is also unfamiliar. It’s not the cold kitchen floor he feels against his cheek, but the biting chill of the open air.

Will jerks his head to the side and sees trees. He looks down at his feet to see them bare and scraped on a bed of broken twigs and leaves. This was not the bed he went to sleep in.

“Hannibal.” He whispers into the night air. A gust of wind rustles the branches overhead, but other than that, there is no response. “Hannibal!” He calls louder, not caring in the slightest that it sounds desperate.

His heart is thumping in his chest and the curved scar on his abdomen scalds in its grin, and Will wants nothing more than for the man that gave it to him to find him now.

The forest twists and Will staggers to the nearest tree. He leans forward, propping himself against the thick trunk with an outstretched arm. He closes his eyes and breathes.

In and out.

In and out.

He needs to get out.

He needs to get home.

“Hannibal.” He shouts out suddenly, erratically, eyes still squeezed shut. “I don’t…” He shakes his head. He feels the beat of wings once more at his back. He gropes his free hand behind him and his hand closes on air. “I don’t know where I am.” He chokes out.

 _What’s happening to me?_ He remembers a distressed question from so long ago, when Abel Gideon (or Garret Jacob Hobbs, or no-one at all – depending on who you asked that night – had been sitting at Hannibal’s dining table with Will’s gun in his face). _Please don’t lie to me._

A sound splits through the trees and he spins around and stumbles back, away from the noise. He hasn’t felt this disorientated in a long time. He sees something move, a little way away in the shadow of the trees. He doesn’t know what it is, but he immediately doesn’t trust it. He senses danger, so he does the only thing his instinct screams at him to do. He gropes for the tree behind him, before swinging himself around it and running in the opposite direction.

He does not know for how long he runs, or if it’s even in the right direction. His stomach turns and he trips over an exposed root, cursing as pain shoots up his foot. He hits the floor hard and the rough earth scrapes at his hands.

There’s a noise again. A sharp, familiar sound through the dark; the bark of a dog.

And then he thinks he hears his name.

He attempts to stand back up. His hands burn.

He looks down at the scrapes and watches scales protrude. The noise he lets out is undignified and high, and his fingers start to curl up into claws. He drops to his knees, and the moment he hits the floor again a searing pain shoots through his skull. He clutches at his head. He feels bone sprouting through his scalp. It’s cracking. Cracking. His skull is splitting and antlers are growing. He has landed in a bed of mushrooms, but they are growing in the image of an eye, like a human mural he remembers. There is a sound about him; he thinks it’s a cello, but it could be someone screaming. Maybe it’s him. The wings on his back change with every beat; dragon, firefly, dragon, flesh wings suspended by strings…There’s a cave bear skull about his face, and then there isn’t.

“Hannibal.” He gasps out. He does not know what to do. Hannibal would know what to do. Hannibal would know the cause of this, because Hannibal knows exactly how to cause this.

It is only when something crashes into his side that Will has a moment of clarity. What if it’s Hannibal he’s running from?

And then suddenly he is no longer in the woods. And he’s not got antlers. Or wings. Or anything of the sort. He’s not even lost. He’s kneeling on the back porch of the house he shares with Hannibal. The weight at his side is Samson, who pants in his ear and licks at his face. Will buries his hands in Sam’s fur and breaths him in, grounds himself, and shakes himself out of the first dream in months that has felt like the old ones way back when Hannibal was messing with his mind. It all felt so tangible in that forest, lost and alone, that it feels like Will has just been plucked from one reality and dropped into another.

As Hannibal appears at his other side, holding out his hand to pull Will to his feet, Will isn’t sure which reality is more bizarre; the forest in which he eternally runs from Hannibal, or the one where he shares his bed and his heart, and is as good as his husband.

Hannibal pulls him close and breaths into his hair the same way that Will had been doing to Sam. Will is wearing only his boxers and the chill of early autumn bites at his skin. He burrows into the warmth of Hannibal’s arms.

“What are you doing out here, Will?” Hannibal asks softly. He knows, of course.

“I must have been sleep-walking.” Will pauses and goose bumps rise up on his arms and down the back of his neck, “I haven’t done that since the first few weeks after the Dragon.”

“And is the Dragon in your dreams at the moment?”

Will knows that Hannibal doesn’t ask whether Will has been having a lot of these kinds of dreams lately, because Will always has these kinds of dreams. They just haven’t been as violent or terrifying, as though Will is becoming increasingly accustomed and adapted to the darkness that they hold.

“I haven’t had one like this in months,” Will cannot stop the shudder that runs through his bones, “and I haven’t had one so vivid in years.”

Hannibal rubs his hands up and down Will’s arms, “You will catch your death out here.”

They both pause and mull that irony over. A laugh bubbles up out of Will’s chest despite himself and he grins. “We wouldn’t want that.”

He looks up at Hannibal and the older man’s eyes are sparkling and crinkled at the corners. He always looks pleased with himself when he manages to make Will laugh.

“Come back inside.” Hannibal moves to guide them into the house.

“Yeah, ok. Come on Sam.” Will calls to their dog, and gives a sharp whistle through his teeth. Sam comes running back across the garden and slips past them and back into the house.

Hannibal sits Will down with a blanket and Will gazes out of the window, losing himself back to the forest for a moment, trying to pick it all apart and figure out what it meant.

He shakes out of it when Hannibal presses a warm mug of cocoa into his hands. Will wraps his cold fingers around the porcelain and breathes in the smell of rich chocolate; only the finest cocoa beans grace Hannibal’s kitchen.

Hannibal sits down opposite him, looking soft and domestic in his striped pyjama bottoms and forest-green woollen jumper (that still cost far more than they should), and his ruffled bed-hair. Hannibal’s feet are bare. Will stares at them for a moment, before realising his own are too, and that they are freezing. He lifts them up so that he is sitting cross-legged in the armchair with his feet warming up under his legs.

“So, what was in this dream of yours?” Hannibal asks. He looks curious. He always is when it comes to what goes on inside Will’s head. He couldn’t gain a physical taste of it, and so he seems to always coax Will’s thoughts out in order to take whatever intriguing morsel he can get.

“I was in your kitchen in Baltimore when…” Will trails off. He swallows hard. He still finds hard to cope with what happened to Abigail. He still sees her sometimes, and that’s ok, it’s nice to see her. Just not the way he just did, with her throat cut open. “When you left for Europe.” He decides is easiest. Hannibal shifts in his chair, but just like always, the remorse is not there. Will does not expect it anymore. More importantly, he does not need remorse from Hannibal. He understands. “And then I wasn’t. I was in a forest. I thought I’d woken up, but I hadn’t, and I started changing. Antlers and wings and fireflies and a whole combination of characteristics from killers I helped Jack hunt down.”

“Are they affecting you? All the murders you have seen in your time? Do they still bother you?”

Will shook his head. If he was being honest, he hasn’t given any but the Dragon and Garret Jacob Hobbs much thought in a long time. “I think they are symbolising something.”

“What do you think they are symbolising?”

“Change, maybe? It could just be the stress from the move.” They had moved to West Virginia only a week ago. Pastures new. Will always takes a little time to adjust. “It could be something that simple; my mind is noting the change of scenery and my unconscious imagination is twisting it into something dark.”

Will’s mind was never that simple. They both knew that. But he could hope.

“Or it could symbolise a change in you.” Hannibal suggests.

Will levels Hannibal with a look and raises an eyebrow. “I think I’ve changed quite dramatically so far. So why now? I don’t think there’s much more to change by this point.”

Something flickers across Hannibal’s face. Doubt? Anticipation? Excitement? It’s gone so fast that Will can’t quite tell.

“There might be more to be seen from you yet.” Hannibal leans forward and cups the side of Will’s face. He feels Hannibal’s thumb run along his jaw. He closes his eyes and he senses Hannibal move before lips press against his temple and his shoulder is being squeezed by strong fingers. “Drink your cocoa before it gets cold.”

*

Will doesn’t tell Hannibal that the dreams keep coming. He dreams of being wrapped up and cocooned, suffocating and unable to claw his way to freedom. And sometimes he does, in fact, have claws, and he writhes about on the floor, muscles contracting and overlarge crooked teeth filling his mouth.

And sometimes, he dreams of Hannibal. Hannibal does not want to let him leave. But Will wants to. For some reason (and for every logical reason, Will supposes, but Will isn’t particularly logical when it comes to Hannibal), Will does. Will makes a break for the door but Hannibal is quicker, stronger, he chases Will down each time and overpowers him, whispering ‘could have beens’ and his disappointment in Will’s ear. And just like Bedelia promised, because Hannibal cannot have Will, no-one can have Will. And so Hannibal carves out Will’s heart whilst Will is still alive and pleading with him. He squeezes the life out of him, hands on his neck. He slits his throat just like he did to Abigail. He finally makes good on gaining his taste of Will’s brain.

But every time Will has one of those dreams, he does not let it take hold of him in waking. They do not touch him at all. Hannibal’s devotion to him is clear. And Will is devoted to Hannibal. And more importantly, Will has absolutely no desire to leave.

Will lies back in the bath, the water warm, but not stifling. It is a big basin-like tub, and Will rests his head on the sloped back, feet unable to reach the end that the taps sit on. He lets his mind wander, but refuses to let it linger in dark places. He has less dark places these days. Because things that were dark to him once are now turning to light.

He is a murderer, now.

He is a serial killer.

The Will that used to teach classes and aid Jack Crawford would be mortified, but hadn’t he been balancing on that knife’s edge all along? Jack helped him unbalance, and Hannibal Lecter pushed him over the edge.

The ugliest thing in the world. He had once said. Not anymore. He sees the beauty in it, now.

He isn’t disgusted with himself, now. He feels guilty, sometimes. He feels like the villain, sometimes. He is looking back less and less with remorse, but it is still there.

Hannibal makes it all better.

Despite having made it so bad for Will in the first place. Hannibal was just getting him here, to this point right now. Will sees that now.

“Your thoughts are loud tonight, darling.”

Will squints his eyes open and sees Hannibal standing in the open doorway, leaning against the doorframe.

“Sorry.” Will shifts and the sound of the water moving is audible in the quiet. “Will you join me, Doctor Lecter?”

“So formal.” Hannibal tuts, but he knows it is how Will often responds to Hannibal calling him pet names. It teases him, and Hannibal finds it amusing. Particularly when he coaxes his preferred names out of Will in the bedroom; the way Will moans his name when he comes.

“Will you join me, Hannibal?” Will corrects, deliberately rolls the name off his tongue the way Hannibal likes it. “Please.”

He watches Hannibal undress, taking each item off and folding it carefully, placing it on top of the wicker basket by the door, before starting on the next.

“The water’s going to be cold by the time you get in.” Will teases lightly, rolling his head against the tub and giving Hannibal a half-smile.

The corner of Hannibal’s lips quirk, but he carries on as he was, until he is standing naked at the side of the bath. Will allows his gaze to travel slowly up Hannibal’s body and down again, slowly licking his bottom lip and pulling it into his mouth. Will spreads his legs as a hint, and Hannibal understands, climbing into the bath in front of Will.

Will pulls him back to lie against his chest, and Hannibal’s head fits on Will’s shoulder. Hannibal’s longer legs have to pull up slightly out of the water to fit, but he seems comfortable, they have done this enough times now to know what works. And on this occasion they aren’t covered in someone else’s blood. Not like last time.

Will slides his wet hands down Hannibal’s dry chest, watching drops of water leave his fingers and roll their way down between the hollows of Hannibal’s ribs. Will feels Hannibal shift and sigh, sinking back further into Will and the water.

“I thought I might take a trip into town tomorrow.” Will says into Hannibal ear, dragging his hands back through Hannibal’s hair.

“Hmm?” Hannibal hums. His eyes are shut and his hands have found Will’s thighs and are dragging up and down them idly.

“Will you come with me?”

“Of course.” Hannibal’s words are slow, unlike his usual crisp attitude and alert awareness of every little detail around him. Only Will has truly seen behind Hannibal’s walls like this. It is his privilege to keep.

 They fall into comfortable silence. Will picks up the body lotion from where he had balanced it on the side of the bath. He lathers his hands and drags them back down Hannibal’s chest, fingers gliding through now-damp chest hair.

“And what are our plans for the rest of the evening?” Will asks, his voice a seductive tone still both slightly unfamiliar and surprising to him. He never knew before that he could be anything near seductive. He has learnt better, now. He’s actually rather gifted at it.

“Anything you desire, Will.” Hannibal’s accent is thick and relaxed, but his fingers suddenly tighten on Will’s thighs.

Will presses his lips hot to Hannibal’s neck and Hannibal barely stifles the groan that rises from his throat. “I thought that might be the case.” Will grins.

*

Will watches Hannibal sprawl back against the pillows on the bed, naked and relaxed following the bath. He stands there a moment, appreciating the lines of Hannibal’s body; the play of bone and muscle in the lighting of the bedroom, and the way that Hannibal’s hair lies damp and spiked, falling almost to his eyes. He looks years younger than he did in that pristine white suit and that pristine white muzzled mask in the isolated all-seeing confinements of the Baltimore State Hospital. Freedom, blood and Will have replenished him.

Hannibal watches him back, expectant and appreciative, before lifting a hand to beckon him over. Will goes immediately, and moves to straddle him.

Hannibal hums low, pleased with him, and his hands are large where they rest along the lines of Will’s ribs. Will descends for a kiss, and Hannibal meets him with parted lips. They exchange lazy, languid kisses for some time. Hannibal’s hands journey down Will’s back, pushing at the bones of Will’s spine, before moving lower still. Hannibal breaks away, “Are you going to ride me, Will?” His voice is hushed and molten.

Will nods distractedly, and Hannibal smiles, “Good boy.”

Hannibal leans over to the bedside table for the lube, and once his fingers are slicked, teases Will open slowly, carefully. Will moves with the sensations, burying his face in Hannibal’s neck when it becomes too much, panting into Hannibal’s heated skin. Will is so relaxed by the time Hannibal finishes, that Will has to force himself away from Hannibal’s skin, biting his neck and then pushing a kiss to his lips as he moves.

“You ready?” Hannibal asks.

Will nods again, still unable to find his words. He grips Hannibal’s shoulder, and one across Hannibal to the headboard as he rises up, and then slowly sinks down onto Hannibal’s cock and Hannibal guides him.

Hannibal groans something in Lithuanian, which has Will smiling triumphantly to himself.

When he is seated, Hannibal worships him with hands and mouth for a second, staring up at him with black eyes that have Will’s arousal spiking.

God, but Will loves him. A deep devotion that is dark and twisted and perfect and _right_. He sees it reflected back at him in Hannibal’s eyes. Hannibal’s obsession. Hannibal’s continuous curiosity. Hannibal’s love.

Will starts to move, slowly at first, but then the pace picks up, and the time for words passes. Hannibal’s hands grasp Will’s thighs and he snaps his hips up to meet Will’s movements, until Will’s breath is audibly hitching and Hannibal is moaning. It feels so, so good. Hannibal may be built for murder, but he is built for sex too. It is ingrained in his instinct.

Will wonders if Hannibal sees the same thing in him.

The come down is quiet and calm. Hannibal murmurs his native tongue in Will’s ear, praising him, as Will lets him arrange him for sleep, cleaning him up and tucking him in with care, Will is too exhausted to complain against Hannibal’s mothering.

Hannibal soon joins him back in bed and presses a kiss to his sweaty shoulder-blade. “Will you be growing wings tonight, William?”

“Or antlers.” Will mumbles drowsily into the pillow. “I never know.”

“Or maybe you’ll become something of your own design.”

“Something of my design.” Will agrees, half-asleep.

“And mine.” Hannibal whispers with a kiss behind Will’s ear, because Will knows he knows Will won’t remember it in the morning.

“And yours.” Will agrees, a second before he falls asleep.

*

“Hannibal?” Will says, pulling his sleeves down over his hands and nursing his cup of coffee.

They are sitting in one of the quaint little coffee shops in town. Despite the distractions of the night before, Will had still remembered his wish to have a look around the new town, and Hannibal had remembered his promise to go with him. They had walked through the town for an hour or so, before retreating to the warmth of the coffee shop. Will presumes Hannibal suggested it because he wants to sit and spend some time scoping out and judging the locals from the comfort of a comfy chair, because he turned his nose up at the coffee and cakes, naturally.

“What is it?” Hannibal looks to him, alert at Will’s quiet and warning tone.

Will lowers his voice and leans forward a little over the table. Hannibal mirrors him, as though they are exchanging gossip. “I think that man knows who we are.” Will breathes, eyes flickering just past Hannibal’s head. “The man by the window.”

Hannibal does not glance over, it would be too obvious. “Why do you think that?” His eyes search Will’s face instead. He does not look the least bit worried. Will is.

Will looks down at his coffee, before glancing back up at Hannibal, keeping the man in his periphery.

They have been sitting here for about ten minutes. The man was sitting in the window when they arrived. He has been staring at them since they walked in the door.

“He’s watched us since we came in. He’s either really interested in us, or he knows who we are.”

Hannibal is watching Will, too. “What do you think?”

“He knows who we are.” Will knows the man does. He allows himself a look over at him. They make eye contact, and just from that, Will only has to use an ounce of his empathy and it tells him a thousand things. The man is loud, even in his silent observation. “He reads TattleCrime.”

“Of course he does.” Hannibal actually rolls his eyes a fraction.

The man must be in his early forties, hulking and tall, hunched over in his chair. A loner who likes his solitude. His clothes are mismatched, old and patched. He takes little care of his appearance. He takes little care over many things, but he cares about TattleCrime and sources of a similar genre. He obsessively checks newspapers; there’s a stack of them in front of him on the table, and he has a battered laptop propped up on the window ledge beside him, which has TattleCrime open. It dawns on Will like a wave, his empathy given the chance to stretch after a while of inaction. The man checks these articles so closely because he wants to make sure that there has been no news of his own crimes, and that people more high profile – like Hannibal and Will – are still in the spotlight.

“He’s a killer.” Will realises, eyes locking with Hannibal’s. “He’s a serial killer.”

“And he knows we are killers.” Hannibal summarises.

Will nods. “He is almost screaming it he’s being that obvious.”

“Interesting,” Hannibal smiles suddenly, bright and wide, “I wonder what his next move will be.”

Will tries for a smile, but it’s closer to a grimace. “You sound excited about this.”

Hannibal’s smile grows and his eyes glint.

“What if he hands us in?”

“He won’t.” Hannibal is confident when he says it. “He’s clearly intrigued. I think he will at least attempt to make contact with us. Not now, but soon.” He leans forward and squeezes Will’s wrist briefly. Will takes Hannibal’s word for it, psychiatrist and expert serial killer that he is.

But Will does not know how this inevitable confrontation will end. He just knows that if Hannibal is involved, it won’t end peacefully. He does not miss how Hannibal and the man stare each other down as Hannibal and Will leave.

*

“Why can’t she just let us die?” Will stares at his laptop in disbelief. “It’s been nearly two years.”

He is reading the latest article on TattleCrime. And Freddie just won’t let them go. It’s obsessive, and not at all flattering. A month or two following initial articles lamenting the deaths of the cannibalistic ‘star cross’d’ murder husbands, Freddie picked up some tail, some trail; false though it may have been, she now believes they do not lie in watery graves. It has become an annoyance for Will and Hannibal, who have otherwise fallen somewhat from public thought, but her increased determination that they are alive must be irking some people, surely. She won’t let the sleeping cannibals lie. And besides, her persistence with an old story looks a little desperate, like she is losing her flare for the current gossip. She needs some new material. But it appears the FBI have wised up to her antics and her face, now. She isn’t getting anything exciting right now, so again and again she looks back at what was her greatest scoop. Hannibal Lecter and ‘Special Agent’ Will Graham. No wonder that man in the coffee shop knew who they were, with Freddie Lounds still reporting on them every other week.

“She won’t stop, will she?” Will asks as Hannibal walks up behind him and scans the article from over his shoulder. “Not until we’re actually dead.”

“And maybe not even then.” Hannibal offers, leaning on the back of Will’s chair with both arms.

“She feels she has the rights to us,” Will supposes out loud, “To our story. She’s as attached to her coining of the title ‘Murder Husbands’ as Chilton was with ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’.”

Will glances up at Hannibal to watch him frown in deep displeasure at the mention of Frederick Chilton.

“Well, you helped take care of Chilton for me.” Hannibal notes proudly. He moves Will’s glasses back up his nose (Will has learned that Hannibal adjusts Will’s glasses as an affectionate action), “Maybe one day you will get your long awaited revenge on Miss Lounds.”

“She always was very rude.”

“She certainly was.”

“It was a shame I didn’t really kill her that time that I pretended to.”

“Quite.” Hannibal moves away from him and Will silently berates himself for bringing it up. But Hannibal does not leave the room; he sits down on the nearest couch and eyes the laptop from his position there, “I do not understand why you still read that tasteless literary nightmare.”

“I’m not reading it out of pleasure.” Will frowns, and his glasses slip back down his nose. He knocks them back up again. “I hate her vile gossiping as much as you do. I’m keeping up with it to make sure she isn’t really on to us.”

“And is she?”

Will looks back at TattleCrime, skimming over the article he has just read titled ‘ _Brunch in Belgium, Dinner in Denmark_ ’. “She thinks we’re touring Europe and eating the natives.”

“And her evidence for this?” Hannibal sounds amused again.

“Nothing concrete, obviously, she’s pointing to the wrong continent. But she’s gathered intel on your Lithuanian roots and your spree in Italy and put two and two together. Look. There’s even pictures.”

Hannibal does not look like he particularly wants to look at the pictures, but he stands obediently from the couch and resumes his position at Will’s back.

They both observe the pictures gathered by Freddie Lounds, most of them unreleased by the FBI. A human-sized heart stands in the Cappella Palatina, surrounded by crime-scene tape.

“I never did ask you about Anthony Dimmond, did I?” Will asks.

He had seen the pictures of Anthony Dimmond, once what was left of his mangled body had been identified. Photographs of what he had looked like before he had met Hannibal.

“What about him?” Hannibal asks. Like he doesn’t know.

“He looks a little familiar, don’t you think?” Will tilts his head up and squints at Hannibal, “A little…similar?”

“I do not know what you mean.” Hannibal knows exactly what he means.

“Come on, Hannibal. You left the heart for me - to draw me in – didn’t you? The fact that it was made from a man who looked like me wasn’t a coincidence, was it?”

Hannibal’s lips thin as he purses them together.

“He looked like me, didn’t he?” Will persists.

Hannibal levels him with a look, but it isn’t irritated with him. It’s curious, because Will has brought it up, and does not appear angry. “I suppose he did.”

It had terrified Will at the time; the idea that Hannibal might have been picking victims that looked like Will. That he had possibly been taking pleasure in watching lookalikes die over and over again. But now Will is mainly consumed with a twisted sense of curiosity. Hannibal was clearly upset, betrayed; _pining_ , for lack of a better word. He had surgically maimed Will in Baltimore, giving him a chance at survival, and then had killed and transformed a man of Will’s image because Will was not there.

“And what did it feel like,” Will asks, standing from the chair and moving into Hannibal’s space, not enough to touch, but enough to be close to the man. “Planning to kill him? Killing him?”

Hannibal reaches out and Will allows himself to be dragged in.

“Did you think of me?” Will asks the question they both knew was coming. “When you were killing him? Did you think of me when you first saw him?”

Hannibal raises a hand to Will’s neck, and Will lets him, waits as Hannibal ghosts his lips across Will’s own. “Yes, I thought of you. I missed you. And I resented you for not being there with me.”

“Bedelia wasn’t enough?” Will asks. She was a substitute bride, Will knows, but he still dislikes her past with Hannibal.

“Nothing was enough.” It sounds like a confession, and Hannibal’s grip tightens a little. Will gasps, but not from lack of air. “I saw you in him, but not enough of you to satisfy. But when I killed him, I reimagined my revenge.” Hannibal’s fingers flex and his eyes glaze a little, and whilst it should worry Will to guess that Hannibal is reimagining every time he has mentally pictured how he would murder Will, he isn’t. Maybe Freddie Lounds was right, maybe Will is a little insane. “But I killed him too quickly to truly imagine it as you.”

“If it was me, you would take your time.” Will knows this, and it should frighten him; but Will ignores this niggling thought the same way he dismisses the contents of his dreams. He puts his trust in Hannibal’s devotion to him now, which he believes to have won the battle with Hannibal’s hunger.

“I would savour every moment.” Hannibal promises. He mouths for a moment at Will’s temple. “Every piece.”

“Then it is just as well that I am no longer hunted by you.” Will tilts his head away slightly to look up into Hannibal’s eyes.

“Yes.” Hannibal agrees, and his lips hover over Will’s own. Will moves to close the distance, but Hannibal’s hand on his throat pushes him back, “Because I have you now.”

“Yes.” Will whispers and Hannibal’s hand moves. Their lips press together and Will hums with a smile.

When they part, Hannibal takes another look at the photographs attached to Freddie Lounds’ article. “I would like to show you Europe, one day, Will. Unfortunately our time together in Italy was cut short.”

Will lets out a bark of a laugh. “Don’t be too disappointed our dinner was interrupted.” He says, “If it hadn’t have been, I wouldn’t have been seeing Florence, or anywhere else, either way.”

“I am pleased that we were interrupted.”

“Believe me. So was I.”

Hannibal cocks his head and grins sheepishly (but how much of that sheepishness is actually meant, Will does not know), and he leads Will to the couch. They sit side by side, and Will allows Hannibal to draw his head down onto Hannibal’s shoulder.

“We could still go to Europe, you know.” Will suggests, “If more people like that man in town recognize us we will be in trouble. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the next time we get recognised we might not be lucky enough that it’s another murderer. I don’t think we can stay in the US forever.”

“Freddie Lounds would be correct in her assumptions if we go.” Hannibal points out. He seems terribly unconcerned about the whole situation. But Hannibal does enjoy his games and his chases.

“So let her come to find us.” Will challenges, “I wouldn’t mind having her for dinner.”

Hannibal laughs and his arm wraps tighter around Will’s shoulders, kisses the top of his head.

“I do wish very much to show you the delights of Europe, Will. I think you would find it calming. It would suit you. Though it would be difficult to fly there now, unless I organise a private flight somehow. I could contact Chiyoh and consider some options.”

“We could sail. Sam wouldn’t mind the open water, and besides, I’ve done it before.”

Hannibal’s fingers press under Will’s chin and Will turns his face up so that Hannibal can kiss him. “Ah yes. Crossing seas for me, Will.” Hannibal says. It is hushed and fond. His eyes are bright. “Very heroic.”

“I thought I was a villain in this piece.”

“The world is shades of grey, William. Not black and white. There are no heroes and no villains, just everything in between.”

“If there was a spectrum, though,” Will says honestly, “We’d be the darkest shade of grey.” He says it with such conviction that he once again finds himself wondering quite how he got to this point. Special Agent Will Graham would be curling up in a ball of self-hatred. Serial Killer Will Graham watches his cannibal lover consider how ‘villainous’ the pair of them really are.

“Yes.” Hannibal decides finally, “I suppose we would.”

*

“Here you are, honey.” The woman that works the counter of the nearest supermarket has taken a shine to Will. She clearly likes the awkward, sweet persona that he intensifies for the sake of his cover. Once upon a time he could not shake that image, but now he can slip it on and off, almost like a cloak.

“Thank you, Sandra.” Will smiles shyly and takes his bag. The fake wedding ring (fake, but still made of the purist gold, Hannibal would buy nothing less, even if it is (for now) a ruse) glinting on his fingers.

He knows the man from the coffee shop is lingering in one of the aisles behind him. He has seen the man multiple times in town since that first day when Will quickly deduced that he was a murderer. Each time the man has watched them with unnerving intensity. Hannibal is treating it like a game. Will is a little more concerned about what this man could – and inevitably will – do.

“Sandra, that man in the cereal aisle, I have seen him around. Who is he? I’m trying to put names to faces and faces to names, if Karl and I are going to be staying in the area.” (Karl is the name that Hannibal has assumed here. Will, meanwhile, is ‘Mark’).

“Oh, I hope you do stay, my dear!” Sandra exclaims. “And that’s Tom Hanson. He has lived here for as long as I can remember, and I moved here a decade ago. He’s a bit of a solitary soul, bless him. He moves with the hunting and fishing seasons; goes for months at a time. Keeps himself to himself. But he is sweet enough. He is misunderstood, I think.”

 _Misunderstood by you, Sandra_. Will thinks _. If only you knew_.

Will has been doing some digging. There have been four reported disappearances in the area in the last six years, a number before that, and several passers-through besides, Will can bet. And all, he believes, at the hand of Tom Hanson. And if Hanson does go away hunting for months, god only knows that else he is doing elsewhere.

How Hanson has not been discovered yet, Will actually has no idea. To Will, he is blatantly obvious. Will can reach him through empathy easier than most he has before; it’s like reading an open book. And it’s not easy just because Will is the way he is, now, either. Hannibal is right; the man is projecting himself because he knows who they are. It is only a matter of time before he makes contact. Whether that contact will be an invitation of friendship or an act of violence, Will has no idea. He isn’t sure he wants to find out. Hannibal, however, typically relishes the idea.

“Thanks Sandra.”

“See you soon I hope, Mark.”

Will smiles, nods and leaves. Hanson’s gaze follows him out of the store.

Will knows before Tom Hanson follows him, grabs his arm and spins him around, that this was going to happen. He had known Hanson’s decision before he even left the store.

“Can I help you?” Will asks, darting his eyes down to Hanson’s chin. Half-pretense, half old-ingrained instinct.  _Eyes are distracting._ “Did I leave something at the store?”

“No, you didn’t, Mr Graham, but you could probably help me.” The man’s words are rough and halting.

“It’s Mr Andersen.” Will corrects. He flicks his gaze up to Tom Hanson’s face.

The man is watching him sceptically. He is taller than Will by a head. He’s taller than Hannibal is, and much broader with muscle, too. His stubble is uneven and the length of the hairs are patchy. His skin is weathered by the outdoors. His lips are thin and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, which are small and narrowed.

“I think you are lying, Mr Andersen.” Tom Hanson says. His breath has traces of alcohol on it. Will refrains from wrinkling his nose. “But maybe Dr Lecter would be more forthcoming.”

“I don’t know who you are talking about.”

“Of course you don’t.” Hanson smiles with teeth and finally releases Will’s arm from his grip. “Of course you don’t.”

“Well, then, I will be on my way.”

“Yes, best be.” The man says. “I will be seeing you soon though; I have a proposal for you both.”

Will pretends not to hear him as he walks away. The hairs on the back of his neck are on end, but he knows that if Hanson tries anything Hannibal doesn’t like, Hanson will be dead before he can even have a moment to regret a thing. And Will finds comfort in that fact.

*

Two weeks pass before Hanson actually makes good on his threat. Will is asleep, and then suddenly he’s not. He knows something isn’t right even before he opens his eyes. They snap open, and Hannibal is lying over him, a hand pressed over his mouth.

Hannibal puts a finger to his own mouth, an order to stay quiet, and lifts his hand away. Will stays obediently silent, and he and Hannibal share a thousand words in only a matter of moments of looking at each other.

There’s someone in the house. And they have a pretty good idea who it might be.

Hannibal points to the window, then to Will, then to the bedroom door. It is a quick wordless flurry of movements but Will understands him. Will nods, and Hannibal moves with catlike grace. He opens the bedside cabinet and puts a blade into Will’s hand, giving him a swift kiss as he leans in, and then he is gone with a knife of his own.

Hannibal noiselessly slides the window open whilst Will makes his way to the bedroom door. Will looks back at Hannibal in time to see Hannibal bite the sheathed knife between his teeth, and disappear as he climbs down the vine framing on the side of the house. Will does not have to see Hannibal climb down to know that it will be a graceful, easy climb. Hannibal will take the intruder by surprise from the back door. Will, however, will be meeting them head-on. Meeting _him_ head-on.

Will grasps the handle of his own knife, and steals into the hall. He stops dead still and listens a moment. Even he, with senses less heightened than Hannibal’s, can hear the footsteps downstairs. The intruder is not attempting to go unnoticed, it seems.

Will treads slowly, carefully down the stairs, and follows the noise into the kitchen.  He takes a moment to feel glad that he shut Samson up in the lounge for the night rather than letting him stay in the kitchen. He’s had enough of psychos hurting, manipulating, or feeding their faces to his dogs.

The moment he enters the kitchen, the barrel of a gun points at his face. For some reason, he hadn’t been expecting that. He hadn’t counted on Hanson being a gun man.

“Good morning, Mr Graham.” Tom Hanson says.

Will swallows. “Mr Hanson.” He says quietly. “It’s a little early, isn’t it?”

“I’m glad you are being honest now, Mr Graham, that will buy you time.” The gun cocks in Tom’s hand. “Where is Dr Lecter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Because I know you both. He won’t be far away.”

“I’m sorry, but you really don’t know us at all. And you will soon learn that you have just made the biggest mistake of your life, coming into this house. So I’m going to give you a chance. I suggest you put the gun down, and get the fuck out of my house.”

“Don’t be rude, darling,” Hannibal’s voice startles them both, “He’s a guest.” Hannibal has edged into the kitchen on Hanson’s other side, blocking him in. The cold confidence and cutting sarcasm in Hannibal’s voice is telling enough that Hanson is not going to make it out of the kitchen alive.

Not that Hanson knows it, yet.

“Lounds was right.” Hanson says, almost gleeful, “So you _are_ lovers? She will be so pleased when she finds out.”

“Oh,” Will laughs, “She isn’t going to find out.”

“Isn’t she?” Hanson challenges, and the gun twitches in his hold. “Or, I suppose I could become Lounds’ next big killer, one that finally brought down Hannibal Lecter and William Graham.”

“You strike me as a bit of a fool, Hanson.” Hannibal says, and his icy tone is treacherous in its danger. Hanson is playing with fire, and he’s going to get burnt alive. “I would suggest you gain some sense and leave this house immediately.”

“I don’t think I will, not when I have Mr Graham here.” Hanson means business when he locks eyes with Will again, and Will can read that this man is volatile and dangerous. He is also, definitely, insane. “Come here, would you, Mr Graham?”

“I think I’ll stay here.”

“I’ll shoot you where you stand. Don’t test me.”

Will glances at Hannibal, and Hannibal looks furious. He meets Will’s eye and gives a tiny nod.

They act instantaneously; Will ducks and launches forward, slashing with his knife, whilst Hannibal does the same from the back.

Surprisingly, things do not go quite as planned.

Hanson moves far faster than expected of someone of his size, and the next thing Will knows, he has been cracked across the skull with the butt of the gun. The knife is forcefully knocked from his hand and Hanson is behind him, holding him close, the barrel of the gun digging into the scar on Will’s cheek.

Hannibal looks minutely surprised as well, as far as Hannibal will outwardly reveal that he has been caught out.

“I’ll blow his precious brains out, Dr Lecter, don’t test me.”

Hannibal is seething in his silent anger, stance ready to pounce - which is a slightly bizarre look on Hannibal when he’s in his pyjamas bottoms and is bare chested - but no less threatening.

“I knew you both the moment I saw you.” Hanson reveals, “And I knew I had to meet you. Challenge you. Bring you down if I could. We three are not so much alike, though Dr Lecter and I have been in this game much longer than you have, Mr Graham. We’ve been murdering since we were children, isn’t that right, Dr Lecter?”

Hannibal’s jaw twitches angrily. The end of the gun runs down Will’s cheek.

“I have admired your kills since you were the Chesapeake Ripper and Copycat Killer, Dr Lecter. And maybe this, my interference in your little…deviance…” He tightens his hold on Will and Will can almost taste the alcohol on Hanson's breath. “...from your path, will free you for your true purposes; creating masterpieces. I admire you, Dr Lecter.”

“Flattery isn’t getting you far, I am afraid, Mr Hanson.” Hannibal says, “Lower your gun.”

“Or,” Tom Hanson changes his mind. He uses the gun to push Will’s hair back from his face. “Or, I could just kill you both and leave a crime scene that will really baffle the FBI. They have been nowhere near as effective in your absence, Mr Graham.”

“I have been flourishing elsewhere.” Will says, a moment before Hannibal throws him his knife and Will catches it, plunging it back into Hanson’s thigh. He leans forward as he does it, so the surprised shot that goes off from the gun ricochets off the fridge.

Hannibal darts forward, despite being weapon-less, but Hanson recovers quickly. He snatches Will’s abandoned knife from where he had knocked it from Will’s hand, and the next thing Will knows Hannibal is grunting with pain and dropping to the floor.

It is almost like when Francis Dolarhyde shot him; Will is always surprised to see Hannibal hurt or outmanoeuvred in a physical fight, even though it happened quite often back then, despite Hannibal always coming out on top in the end.

But Hannibal isn’t moving from the floor. He isn’t getting up, and although it is only a matter of seconds, to Will it is a lifetime, and Will feels a fury rise up in him unlike any he has ever known; a mix of empathising with both Hannibal and Hanson at the same time? He isn’t sure, but it’s cold, it’s sharp, and it’s deadly.

He lets out a snarl, and leaps at Hanson, cutting down with his knife. It catches Hanson’s forearm. Hanson seems startled by Will’s agile attack and he lets out a mangled shriek at the deep gash in his arm. Will does not relent, because Hannibal is still not getting up off the floor. He has not got time to stop and check on him. He just has time to get revenge. Tom Hanson cannot leave this house alive, Hannibal would be so disappointed. Will won’t let Tom Hanson live after this.

The next few minutes are a blur of red that Will will never quite be able to fully recall.

But he remembers that it terrifies him; how much he enjoys it.


	6. Chapter 6

For all that Will Graham cannot recall the act of butchering Tom Hanson, Hannibal Lecter remembers it. Every single second will forever be branded in his memory.

The moment the metal of the knife had sliced Hannibal’s skin, he had known he had been a fool to underestimate Tom Hanson’s strength and swiftness. He should have kept a more wary eye on the knife. He had assumed that Hanson had been too distracted by the blade that Will had plunged into his thigh, but Hanson had recovered far quicker than Hannibal had expected. Hannibal’s recklessness had earned him a slash across the side from one of his own knives; one that he prides in keeping deadly sharp. The surprise of the recovered attack and the accompanied unexpected pain had Hannibal dropping to the floor with a groan, hands tight over the wound. It wasn’t going to kill him - Hannibal was made of far sterner stuff – but just because he has quite literally walked away from more fatal wounds than this, does not mean that it does not hurt.

He must only have been on the floor for a matter of seconds before he hears Will give out a shrill, enraged snarl. Will must think Hannibal is more hurt than he is, because that strangled noise is animalistic and distraught enough that Hannibal feels it in his bones. Hannibal does not quite see the ensuing scuffle, but Hanson lets out a pained shriek before there is the sound of a gunshot and he lands with a thud on the kitchen floor, not far away from Hannibal. Will is clearly the victor of the skirmish, and Hannibal is not about to miss what is to follow.

With difficulty, Hannibal turns to see Will staring down at Hanson with a single-minded determination. The gun dangles loosely in his fingers. He is crouched low and his teeth are bared, and it takes Hannibal back to the clifftop, nearly two years ago, when Will’s wolf-like ferocity had first been revealed to him. Will does not linger, however, and does not wait for a nod from Hannibal like last time – in fact, he does not even look at Hannibal – he lunges forward all on his own. This kill is going to be Will’s alone, and Hannibal watches with stalled breath. Will discards the gun; sends it flying across the kitchen, as he moves to yank his knife out of Hanson’s leg. The action draws another shout from Hanson.

Hannibal can see now, from his new position, that Will shot Hanson in his other thigh, which was what sent Hanson to the floor. Hanson could be bleeding out by now, as with a wound in each thigh and an ugly gash in his arm, it is unlikely that the major arteries have been missed. But Hanson still has extraordinary upper-body strength as he lurches up to clash with Will. Will is shadowed from the growing dawn outside, his face patches of black-shade and white-moonlight as he meets Hanson with a remarkable strength of his own, clawing the other knife – the one that was used on Hannibal and is still scarlet with Hannibal’s blood – from Hanson’s hand. And all of a sudden Will is straddling Hanson, with a knife in each hand. Hannibal watches Will and Hanson stare at each other for a moment, before Will twitches one hand back, ready to strike.

“Wait…” Hanson chokes.

Hannibal watches Will’s face. It is calm and cold, his eyes dark and distant. Hannibal knows what is about to happen. His deadly and beautiful boy has never looked more a natural-born killer than he does right at this second.

Will slams the knife down into Hanson’s chest.

What follows is bloody and vicious. It is feral. It is perfect. Will has never looked more remarkable than he does right now. One knife slashes down, then the other, big sweeping movements, a continuous pendulum across Tom Hanson’s body. It does not appear that Will is caring, nor really seeing, which parts of Hanson he is carving into. Hanson screams for about a minute before he goes quiet, but Will continues a little longer. Blood still sprays up into Will’s face. His boy’s jaw is clenched in determination, his eyes hard and unforgiving.

He sees the moment that Will realises the threat no longer exists and he snaps back to himself. He blinks with wide, dazed eyes and the knives clatter to the floor.

Hannibal is surprised when Will does not even look down at Hanson and instead immediately moves to kneel at Hannibal’s side.

“Hannibal?” Will whispers, “Hannibal? Are you alright?” Blood soaked hands come up to touch Hannibal’s face.

Hannibal lets out a genuine groan as he moves, pushes himself up a little off the floor. Strands of his sleep-mussed hair fall into his eyes and Will brushes them tenderly aside, nothing like the crazed creature he was a second ago. Hannibal is proud of him.

“Are you ok?” Will asks again, his hand moves to flutter over the wound in Hannibal’s side, but he does not touch. “Sorry, my hands are…” He shrugs, palms open and dripping in blood. “Hang on…” He gets up and comes back holding a clean dish towel with another towel folded in it; free from the blood. He drops to his knees again and presses it to Hannibal’s side. “Is it…are you hurt badly?”

“I’ll live.” Hannibal assures him, not bothering to hide the pain lacing his tone. He has nothing to hide from Will anymore. “It will need stitching.”

“Right.” Will nods, “Just…” He looks around, seemingly a little dazed again, “Just let me wash my hands. Do you need a hand up?”

Hannibal could get up just fine by himself, but he chooses instead to hold his hand out, and Will grasps his arm, leaving bloody handprints on Hannibal’s forearm and bicep as he helps him to his feet. “Right.” Will says again, and he presses a hand to Hannibal’s chest, over his heart, leaving yet another print on his skin. Will stares at it when he moves his hand away.

“Will.” Hannibal prompts him, and he breaks whatever spell Will had fallen back under.

Will shakes his head, comes back to himself again. “Can you stand by yourself?”

Hannibal nods, watches Will as he moves to the sink to wash his hands. The sun is beginning to rise, and Will is bathed in red, as he washes red from his hands and down the sink. Hannibal watches every little movement Will makes, so he knows the exact moment when the blood in the sink suddenly strikes home, and the muscles visible under Will’s sweat-soaked white t-shirt tighten and go rigid.

Will spins around abruptly, grasping the sink behind him, as he stares down at Hanson like he is only just seeing and understanding the sight of the mangled body, and how it had come to be that way. He staggers back further into the kitchen counter, his eyes wide and mouth open and gasping. “What have I…” He starts.

But Hannibal cannot let Will regret this.

Not something that was more pure and magnificent to Hannibal than the finest of art.

Hannibal is beside Will in an instant. The younger man has his face in his hands and his head is shaking, his body vibrating with what Hannibal can only deduce as delayed shock. Yes, Will and Hannibal have killed a number of people together before now, and Will has been better in the aftermath each time - controlled and calm in most instances - but this has been Will’s most brutal killing yet, and it is one that he has done alone.

Hannibal edges his way between Will and the counter. He wraps the arm of his unwounded side around Will’s chest, holding him from behind as Will shakes.

“You did so well.” Hannibal breathes into Will’s hair. “You did so well.” He always found it easiest to sway Will’s state of mind whilst Will was in a state of distress. He rocks the smaller body in his arms, just a little. “I have never seen anything so beautiful as you were just then.”

“You think so?” Will says after a while and moves his hands away from his mouth, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry, by the way.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything, my love.” Hannibal traces the side of his thumb down Will’s cheek, along the Dragon’s scar. “What are you sorry for?”

Will gestures towards the body and the tone of voice that follows is more irritated than anything, “For the mess. Plus I don’t think any of the organs will be salvageable. I wasn’t very careful about it.”

Hannibal starts in surprise and turns Will with his arm. He stares down at him, and Will looks back. The Will that looks up at him is calm, collected and the momentary relapse of control – if that’s even what it was, Will is not crying, or looking the least bit sorrowful or guilty – has undeniably passed. Hannibal wonders whether Will’s moment of shaking was the aftermath of adrenaline and a power-filled attack, and not as Hannibal first assumed; distress at what he had done.

“Let’s get you stitched up.” Will peers down at the wound on Hannibal’s side. Hannibal glances down at it too and moves the towel aside. It is a clean cut – Hannibal’s pride in sharp knives has saved him from a jagged tear – though relatively deep, blood is dripping down his side and onto the floor. Not so deep as to bone or anything vital, though, which is a small mercy. Lips brush against his cheekbone, and a now-clean hand takes his own. “Where do you want to do this? The bathroom will be easier to clean afterward but it’s not as comfortable. The bedroom, maybe?”

“The bedroom.” Hannibal agrees.

Will moves to lead him up the stairs. He doesn’t spare Tom Hanson a second glance. Hannibal doesn’t either.

Will does not even mention the man downstairs until Hannibal is drugged and cleaned and stitched.

“I’ll go and clean up the kitchen.” Will’s hands are steady as he finishes wrapping the bandage around Hannibal’s middle. Hannibal has been checking Will’s work closely, and is more than satisfied with Will’s first-aid. The bandage is tight enough to hold the wound together but not constricting.

Hannibal catches Will’s hand. “We will take care of it later.”

“But…”

“In a few hours.” Hannibal promises. “Stay with me until then.”

Will pauses but Hannibal does not have long to wait for the inevitable nod. He lies back, guiding Will onto the bed to lie beside him. Will is on Hannibal’s un-wounded side, but he still seems to be taking care when he lays his head on Hannibal’s chest.

“I am not going to break.” Hannibal smiles into brunet curls. The idea is hilariously ludicrous. But the fact that Will clearly cares so much for him is heart-warming.

“I know you aren’t.” Will says quietly. His hand is petting absently along Hannibal’s stomach. Eventually he decides to say what’s on his mind; “I was worried though, when you didn’t get up.”

“I was only down for a few seconds before you took matters into your own hands.” Those wonderful, life-ending hands.

“Really?” Will sounds surprised, and Hannibal glances down to see Will squinting up at him. “It seemed longer.”

“No matter.” Hannibal catches one of Will’s hands and he brings it up to his lips, presses a kiss to the knuckles. He imagines he can still taste the iron of the red that they had been painted with. “You did such a wonderful job for me.” He runs his lips over Will’s curled fist.

“I don’t really remember.” Will’s confession does not surprise Hannibal. He had seen the vacant, but determined look on Will’s face whilst he had been slashing Hanson to pieces. Will had somewhat removed himself from the action.

“But do you remember how you felt?”

Will’s hand clenches in Hannibal’s grip, just a fraction. “I felt powerful.” His voice is a breathy, joyful confession.

 ‘ _I liked killing Hobbs’_ a voice from so long sings in Hannibal’s mind; more disgusted back then.

‘ _Killing must feel good to God, too.’_ Hannibal had reasoned, _‘He does it all the time, and are we not created in his image?_ ’

_‘That depends who you ask.’_

_‘God’s terrific. He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.’_

_‘And did God feel good about that?’_

_‘He felt powerful.’_

Hannibal has felt that kind of power for decades now. And there’s power in every inch of Will Graham. He is a sharp, strong and shiny weapon finally realising and utilising its full potential.

“And you remember seeing him afterward.” Hannibal prompts.

“Yes. I remember. He was a mess.”

“One person’s mess is another’s masterpiece.”

Will chuckles, and Hannibal almost immediately grins in response. “You think that was a masterpiece?” Will asks him.

“I do.”

“I can do far better than that.” Will almost sounds offended, and Hannibal once again feels a great pride in his boy. His love. His pupil. “That is the product of anger. I have more control than that.”

“I know.” Hannibal assures him. “I have seen it. And I look forward to seeing it again and again.”

He knew that Will would not disappoint him.

Because Hannibal knows that this was the final nudge that Will needed. Will is complete, at last. He is transformed entirely; from a timid caterpillar into the most stunning of all butterflies.

*

Will’s final flourish sparks a greater change in him than Hannibal could have imagined. He radiates in confidence, a far cry from the nervous man Hannibal once met who refused to make eye contact. He is even quicker to smile and laugh. His fears and doubts do not bother him anymore – or seem not to, at least – and he is even more at ease with eating whatever Hannibal puts before him at the dinner table. He eats it. He helps prepare it. And he hunts it.

Will thrives in West Virginia. They stay in West Virginia following their trouble with Tom Hanson, because Hanson’s disappearance will not likely be noticed for months yet, with him being nomadic with the hunting seasons. Will likes it here. The fishing is good, and he spends more time out of doors and out of Hannibal’s company. Hannibal is delighted to see him this way; the way Hannibal always wanted to see him. And for the meantime, at least, Hannibal exists in a state of euphoria. He has his mate, his partner-in-crime. He has Will in entirety now, because he helped him get to where he is.

When Will hunts he holds back far less than he did before. He is more eager to learn, more eager to find a victim. Hannibal more and more frequently sees glimpses of the feral creature that took down Tom Hanson and Francis Dolarhyde. Will says the Dragon helps him, sometimes, and the Ravenstag too, and that they have come to form a tentative relationship within his overactive mind; no longer warring for control of him, but whispering assurances to him. He says Abigail still lingers in his imagination too. But he tells Hannibal all this casually, now, like it is the most ordinary thing in the world. His increased openness about the working of his mind still intrigues Hannibal, and he laps up any conversation on the matter with single-minded devotion.

Hannibal does miss Will’s lessened dependency on him sometimes, though. He is not ashamed to admit that he often makes efforts to assert his dominance on Will and subtly keep some control on the man that he once so loved to poke and prod just to see what he could and would do.

“Darling,” Hannibal says one evening, curling a brunet ringlet around his finger, “Your hair is getting a little long, don’t you think?”

Will frowns up at him thoughtfully from where his head lays in Hannibal’s lap. “Do you think so?”

It is past his ears now. Hannibal prefers it an inch or two shorter; still enough to grab and still long enough to keep its delicious curls, but so that it does not hide Will’s face so. It is not a face that should be hidden from the world.

“A little.” Hannibal says again.

Will hums thoughtfully – unoffended – and raises his own hand to tug at his hair. “I suppose it is.”

The next day Will has cut his hair to the exact length that Hannibal most adores it, and his developing beard is trimmed back to cheek-shadowing stubble.

“You look wonderful, my darling.” Hannibal tells him, draws him in to kiss him. He runs his hand through the shorter locks.

Will smiles at him like Hannibal has paid him the most adoring of compliments, and kisses him again.

*

They celebrate Christmas properly for the first time. Hannibal has always prided himself on having the most tasteful of decorations. He almost suggests to Will that they host a dinner party – he misses playing host, it has been a long time – but after Hanson’s recognition of them they are being even more careful. Since Hanson, Hannibal has been in touch with Chiyoh to make arrangements for a quick exit to Europe should the need ever arise. He is being cautious, because there is no way that any human being will ever get Hannibal back into a jail cell. And he would never allow anyone to lock Will Graham up again now that he is finally free.

Christmas is therefore a quiet affair. But Hannibal is selfish, and just having Will to himself is more than satisfying. Besides, Hannibal has a few surprises up his sleeve for Will. He still enjoys keeping Will on his toes, but with delights now, rather than anything sinister, as used to be his forte.

Will buys Hannibal a wristwatch and matching pocket watch of great expense and as Hannibal is thrilled to find, of very refined taste. He is very pleased with them, and is pleased that Will has learnt what Hannibal likes, whilst also finally learning to spend money on himself, too.

“Thank you Will.” Hannibal smiles at Will and leans over to kiss him. Will smiles brightly at him and returns it. “Now I had best give you your gift.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.” Will says immediately, because of course he does.

Hannibal refrains from rolling his eyes. “Nonsense. It is one of the rare times of the year that you allow me to spoil you.” He holds out his hand for Will to take and Will does, following him from the lounge.

Hannibal has gotten Will a gift that he already knows Will will endlessly adore. It had been challenging keeping his arrangements secret from Will but Will appears none the wiser (he has always been talented at keeping Will in the dark, he supposes).  

As they approach the kitchen, Samson is scratching at the door and whining.

 “Sam.” Will reprimands, “Don’t scratch the wood.”

Hannibal thinks of Will’s cabin in Wolf Trap and catches himself before he smiles. Will would never have cared about such things before. Hannibal is clearly having an influence. The younger man whistles, sharp, “Come away. Good boy.”

Samson obeys and comes to them. Hannibal reaches out and ruffles Samson’s fluffy ears fondly and Will crouches to pet Samson, “Good boy.” He says again “If it’s your dinner you’re after, you’ll be getting it later”. He glances up at Hannibal, “I don’t know what’s gotten him all excited.”

“Why don’t you come and see?” Hannibal offers, opening the door to the kitchen and beckoning Will inside. Will wanders through, Samson at his heels. “By the backdoor.” Hannibal prompts.

Will raises an eyebrow at him, but does as directed, walking towards the backdoor. Hannibal follows, and sees the moment that Will locks eyes on the pet carrier in hallway, and hears the tiny mewling barks from within. Will spins around to look at Hannibal, eyes wide and smile threatening to split his face. “You didn’t.”

Will turns back and crouches down in front of the pet carrier. He opens the door and reaches inside. “Oh, oh, oh,” He coos gently, as he lifts out the wriggling bundle inside. “Oh Hannibal,” Will murmurs, “She’s gorgeous.”

Will sits on the floor, back against the wall. The puppy is held to his chest and he stares down at it, transfixed. Samson comes to sit beside him, snuffling at the little creature in Will’s arms. Will looks so blissful, Hannibal cannot help but smile.

“You like her?” Hannibal asks.

“I love her.” Will corrects, clucking his tongue gently as he puppy starts to climb his chest, “Hannibal, thank you.”

It had taken some time to track down a young puppy, but he had found one in a shelter, because he knew Will would ask where it had come from, and as a man who collected strays, he knew Will would only be happy with a rescued or homeless dog. However, Hannibal has also been meticulous in his search for a purebred, and this puppy with its bright blue eyes and short-haired silver-grey coat has all the bearings of a Weimaraner; a German breed that Hannibal has always found particularly handsome. There may be some cross-breeding in it somewhere, but it will remain to be seen once it grows. If she does grow to have the features of a purebred Weimaraner, then she would be a smart, sleek contrast to Samson’s lovable mongrel-appearance; one clean cut and the other handsomely ruffled, like Hannibal and Will themselves, he supposes.

For someone who was very isolated when Hannibal met him, he has seen over the years how Will attempts to make himself a family – possibly stemming back to his own unconventional unaffectionate family life as a child – with his collection of dogs, his fatherly devotion to Abigail, and his little family with Molly and Wally (a child that is not Will’s because Will’s genes are not ones that he wants to pass on).

But Abigail is gone. Molly and Wally are gone, and Will’s collection of dogs with them. He’s not getting any of them back. So Hannibal is building a new one with him. And seeing Will fuss over the little puppy, snuggling her close and smiling at her with his beautiful grin, gives Hannibal every confidence that Will is perfectly happy with his current family.

“What are you going to name her?” Hannibal asks. He had named Samson, after all, so it seems fair.

Will laughs when a paw lands on his face, and gives it a swift kiss before it falls away. He holds the puppy out for Samson to investigate. “I don’t know,” Will says, “She’s bold. She’s friendly.” He tilts his head and looks up at Hannibal, “Would calling her Bev or Abby be a little…” He pauses; he is worried he has crossed a line. “Close to home?”

Hannibal knows Will does not mean to offend him. And in truth, it doesn’t. Beverly Katz and Abigail Hobbs were strong, brave women. They were just…in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were a means to send a message.

And Hannibal has told Will it is his choice, so Will can call their new puppy whatever he wishes.

He kneels down beside Will and kisses his temple, ducking his head to smile at the puppy as she clambers towards him. He looks up to find Will watching him with an expression of unrestrained love on his face. “You can call her whatever you wish, Will.” Hannibal promises.

It’s not the only time that day that Hannibal finds himself on his knees before Will. The first time is when he takes him into his mouth in the lounge in the early afternoon. Will is sitting in the armchair, attempting to remain composed. He fails. Hannibal wins.

The second time, it is on one knee. It is after Christmas dinner (no human meat, unfortunately, they had not had a recent hunt. It is turkey, but Hannibal would be damned if anyone would ever suggest his Christmas dinner was ‘traditional’, so it has his usual flare. Will eats every last bite and enjoys every single second, so Hannibal concludes it a triumph), and Will gets up to start clearing away plates and dishes. Hannibal beats him to it.

“Will, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a moment.”

Will turns and his mouth drops open in surprise as Hannibal goes down on one knee.

“I know we have discussed marriage before.” Hannibal starts, “And I know in the eyes of the law we cannot be lawfully married at the moment.”

Not because they are men of course. That is not a problem anymore in terms of legality, and as far as Hannibal is concerned it should never have been a problem. The issue that Hannibal and Will have is the existence of Will Graham’s wife. She may not know that Will is still lives, or with Hannibal now, but she is still alive, and still technically married to Will. But Will has made Hannibal promise to leave Molly alone. It is with great regret that Hannibal is keeping to his promise.

“But,” he continues, and he cannot quite gage Will’s reaction; he looks shocked, surprised, possibly a little flattered. “I feel that as we are so often presenting ourselves as husbands, that I feel that I have not been appropriately chivalrous regarding our arrangement. I believe that to be a husband requires a more intimate proposal, and a more permanent band to wear.” He opens the box in his hand, to reveal the two custom-made engraved golden bands.

They already have a pair of rings that they slip on now and again for appearance’s sake, which Will will inevitably argue are expensive and beautiful enough, but Hannibal had already informed him that they were not for keeping permanently. Will requires something far more special than a generic band.

“And I do recall you saying that you would not find the thought of being my ‘actual husband’ intolerable.”

“I did.”

“And if I asked you now to be my husband, would you find the proposal a tolerable thing?”

Will’s mouth tilts in a small, bashful smile. “I would.”

Hannibal had been confident that that would be Will’s answer, but it still sends a thrill through him hearing Will say it. Having another means with which to keep Will, and for Will to have him, and to display their commitment to each other and the hunt.

Will places his hand on Hannibal’s upturned palm when Hannibal offers it, and Hannibal slips one of the rings onto Will’s finger. He kisses the ring-finger before releasing him. He stands whilst Will holds his hand up to the light to admire it curiously. It looks rich against his skin.

Will reaches for him and Hannibal steps smoothly forward into Will’s space to receive a kiss.

*

The ring on Will’s finger is worn constantly. He doesn’t take it off. He grows accustomed to it far quicker than Hannibal does. Hannibal takes his off for cooking and other necessary tasks. Will’s ends up covered in dog food, mud, riverbed silt, fish scales, motor oil, blood. Hannibal is surprised to find himself preferring Will keep it on than take it off, regardless of how it has to deal with every element, liquid and wear that Will puts it through. Besides, it does shine so against Will’s skin when the rest of him is coated in scarlet.

Like right now, for instance. Will is reclining in the bath, blood glazing him from the waterline up. His bloody hands are lax where they rest on the edges of the tub. Hannibal leans against the bathroom wall, arms crossed and sleeves rolled up, watching him soak.

“You did well, darling.” Hannibal tells him, just like always.

Will’s eyes are closed and his head rests against the back of the tub. The corner of Will’s mouth twitches up. “I was taught by the best.”

Hannibal smirks. “Such flattery. But you were taught by more than just myself.”

“My years with the FBI don’t count.” Will squints at Hannibal from across the room, “They taught me nothing. They just infected me. They never had the professional, intelligent brutality of the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Hannibal pushes himself from the wall and moves to kneel beside the tub, raking his gaze over the naked skin he can see. “Not even Garret Jacob Hobbs or Francis Dolarhyde?”

“No.” Will closes his eyes again as Hannibal’s hands land on his shoulders to guide him under the water. He resurfaces, and Hannibal is transfixed for a moment on the water streaking through the dried blood on his face. “Not even them, because even they were played by you.”

Hannibal squeezes shampoo onto his palm before running his hands back through Will’s hair. Will moans quietly at the touch.

“You know how I enjoy my games.” Hannibal says.

“I know only too well.” Will responds, arching his head back into Hannibal’s massaging fingers. “Master puppeteer. It’s all fun and games.”

And Will was his favourite toy.

Will falls quiet and Hannibal becomes thoughtful as he slowly washes the blood from Will’s hair and skin. He does not play Will anymore. Will is not his toy. He is Hannibal’s now, but not to play with in that way. In fact, Hannibal has no game to play at the moment. He hasn’t for some time. The hunt has been enough to not miss the chase, the moving of pieces, the artistry of tugging at strings, winding Will Graham up and watching him go. Would that always be the case?

So content is he with having Will with him, and just the way Hannibal always imagined he could be - confident, deadly, perfect - he has let many of his old hungers slide. He has let go some of the satisfaction of testing Will; Will has been tested. Let go the satisfaction of drugging Will and manipulating his brain as the disease took hold; he could – and would – never do that again. He loves him now. Will is no longer an object of curiosity.

Hannibal has never been able to fully supress the fact that he sometimes misses the Will that would allow Hannibal to play such games with him because he did not know any better; he misses sending Will so close to an edge and then pulling him back, but not too far. He liked seeing what Will would do.

All of a sudden he has the abrupt, foolish urge to push Will under the bath water; watch Will slide down into the water, trusting in his hands, slow and quiet, but then hold him under.  He imagines Will underwater, hair drifting about his face, eyes closed and body still under Hannibal’s hands, then realise he cannot come up. What would Will do? Would he fight back? Would he struggle? Or would he calm again and trust Hannibal to let him back up, knowing that Hannibal could never let him go. That Hannibal would ‘keep him forever’ now that he has him.

Of course, that is the problem. Hannibal is devoted to Will – body, mind and soul – and he has Will the same, he knows. It is a relief to know that he could never kill Will Graham, but it is a curse as well. He has never been in love like this. It makes him wonder what will happen if he ever grows bored. Could he ever grow bored? He misses the games, so maybe he needs to make a new one.

Hannibal likes this domestic life he and Will have built between them, with Samson and Bev and their string of houses. But they have stayed in West Virginia too long. Maybe a new game will distract him again, thrill him again. And how thrilling it would be to have Will with him, pulling the strings beside him, playing the game with him. Moving the pieces. Watching the puppets dance. Hannibal would be happy with that.

He does not push Will under the water. He watches the drops of aqua gleam on Will’s eyelashes, and leaves Will unharmed and none-the-wiser.

He deals with his urges later that evening, under Will’s consent.  He binds Will’s wrists to the bed frame and teases him to the edge before backing off over and over. He watches Will writhe and moan and beg so beautifully, so urgently. This is the only way he will see Will’s distress now, watches Will become oversensitive and gasping for air (a hand at his neck, sometimes, and other times not) and Hannibal lives for these moments. He cannot cause Will mental distress anymore, not like he used to. He cannot manipulate him like he used to. But he can wind him up and up like this. And no-one has to die. Will does not have to suffer. And at the end of it all Will is relieved, Hannibal’s hunger is sated, and Will just loves him all the more.

Hannibal loves him in return. Unconditionally. Fiercely.

*

Hannibal suggests a few weeks later that they should go to the opera. It has been a while since they went out to a public event, and Will is initially doubtful. It does not take him long to talk him around.

Will has become talented at winning over the crowds and his newly heightened confidence only furthers to assist him; clean-cut hair and closely trimmed beard, a figure-hugging suit and thick-rimmed glasses, he can play shy all too well, but tonight he chooses suave and self-assured. He is the epitome of perfection. He takes Hannibal’s arm with his left hand, ring displayed where his hand rests on Hannibal’s forearm. He engages in conversation, he smiles at Hannibal like he always does. His laugh is bright and un-forced even though he does not normally find these types of people very witty. Will has his own unusual sense of humour.

In the interval, they find themselves a corner of the lounge, and Will tells Hannibal what he thinks is happening in the plot (he is far closer to the point than the last time). Will has his back to the rest of the room, so only Hannibal sees the camerawoman working her way around the room, taking photographs of the guests. He sees the camera point somewhat in their direction and he makes no effort to move them out of the way. In fact, Hannibal sees an opportunity, a chance to move a piece in the game. He takes a hold of Will’s lapels and draws him forward, turning him slightly. Will’s hands move automatically to Hannibal’s waist and smiles at him the second their kiss ends.

“What was that for?” Will grins. He ignores the rest of the room, unembarrassed and pleased.

“For you.” Hannibal tells him, kissing him again. “For us.”

He does not know if anything will happen, but there is a chance that he just set the game in motion once again. It’s a chance Hannibal is willing to take.

*

Something does happen. It takes nearly a month, but it does happen.

Will drops the open local paper in front of Hannibal and points at a picture on one of the pages.

“What do we do?” Will asks.

Hannibal can hear the fear in Will’s voice. Will has worried about this intermittently through the near-three years following their ‘deaths’. That their faces could be posted publicly. That people would recognise them and learn the truth. The closest they have come was Tom Hanson. But Will had more than silenced him.

“We have clearly become a little too careless.” Hannibal says, “But this may not have any impact on us at all. We are not even the focus of the photograph, Will. I doubt anyone will notice.”

“But what if they do?”

Then the game will restart again, at long last.

“Then we will follow our plan and move to Europe.” Hannibal says calmly, assuring. “I have been making arrangements, just in case.” He stands and cups Will’s face in his hand, “We may have to bring our planned hunt forward a little.”

Will huffs. “You’re not even concerned. It’s always about the hunt with you.”

Hannibal smiles, “Always. It is beautiful, after all.”

Will’s lips quirk. “Who ever said that?”

Hannibal and Will kill their victim - Liza Lawson – together. Hannibal suggests they finally make a creative piece (the first time Will would make one since his firefly, the first time Hannibal would since Anthony Dimmond), because they have been in hiding. They may not be in hiding for much longer. Hannibal thrills at the game. At the thought of being creative and be artistic again; making masterpieces. And Will accepts, which pleases Hannibal even more.

Will is the one that suggests the idea of making the scene into a photographer, “If that’s what caught us, we’ll catch one in turn.”

Hannibal watches Will ponder and arrange and knows that he would tear the world apart for Will Graham. But Hannibal’s need to keep changing the game - keeping the pieces in some kind of motion - may become a problem with time. He would tear the world apart for Will Graham but he may also tear Will apart over time, piece by piece, if he is not careful.

He still wants to keep Will Graham, he still wants to find new ways to test Will Graham. It has been that way since the start. And in the end, if he is being brutally honest, he doesn’t know which will win; his passion for the man or his curiosity for the monster. In a perfect world he would have both, but that cannot be truly predicted. Because he cannot truly predict Will Graham.

And besides, Hannibal isn’t a fan of predictability.

It is a reason why he fell in love with Will in the first place.

 

* * *

 

 

 _‘_ _I want him back in the field. And I’m recommending a psych eval._ ’ Oh Jack, how had you not seen how far you were pushing him. So eager for results. So eager to put Will’s fragile mental state on the line for results.

 _‘Are we starting now?’_ Will, so raw still from killing Garret Jacob Hobbs. So susceptible.

‘ _Oh, the session wouldn’t be with me.’_ Alana had said. If only she had taken on Will’s case. If only it hadn’t been needed at all. You pushed, Jack. You pushed. But Will had been such a benefit. He’d saved lives. Caught killers.

 _‘Hannibal Lecter’s a better fit. Your relationship’s not personal.’_ Oh Jack, if only you had known what you know now. _‘But if you are more comfortable with Dr Bloom…’_

 _‘No,’_ Will had said, _‘I’m not going to be comfortable with anybody inside my head.’_

Jack Crawford sighs and drops his head into his hands, shakes his head. It never does him well to dwell on his mistakes in the past: like trusting Hannibal Lecter; letting Hannibal Lecter become Will’s psychologist and confidant; pushing Will to his limits for success in the field; allowing himself to believe Will Graham was a murderer; allowing Hannibal to craft Will into a murderer; not finding Will’s body to return to his wife.

He shouldn’t dwell on it, but he does. He thinks it all over and over, because Will was another agent he lost in the field and he could have done something about it. But Hannibal Lecter had fooled them all, and by that point had gotten his hooks so deep into Will that Will could not do anything about it.

Jack Crawford thinks it all over and he grows tired. He is tired more often than not, these days. Since losing Bella. Since the downfall of the Tooth Fairy. Since losing Will Graham.

There’s a knock at the door and Jack Crawford composes himself.

“Come in.”

“Sir?” The young female agent asks as she enters the room, “Sorry to disturb you, Sir.” She’s a bright spark this one, Jack can see it already. She’s fresh from the academy and eager, but composed. There’s something about her that reminds him of Will; not flighty or intimidated by social situations, but Jack has read her reports. She is observant and she analyses a crime scene with a clarity that Will always possessed. She sees things that other people miss.

“Not at all.” Jack waves her in.

“You have a visitor, Sir, but I do not know if you will want to see her. It’s Miss Freddie Lounds.”

Jack only just refrains from rolling his eyes, but he does sigh. Freddie Lounds is another thing that still exhausts Jack, but at least Miss Lounds is still a current thorn in his side, rather than his solely being plagued by unpleasant memories. Other than Price, Zeller and the occasional complaints from Frederick Chilton, Miss Lounds is the only one that even dares speak about Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter to him. The only problem is, is that Miss Lounds talks about them too much. She will not let them rest (in peace, for Will; in pieces for Hannibal, for all Jack cares). It is becoming her obsession. In fact, Will Graham was an obsession of hers since the very beginning.

But he decides he would rather face Freddie Lounds than replay old conversations in his head and wish he had done better.

“I’ll see her, thank you, Starling.”

Starling nods and leaves, before showing Freddie Lounds into the room a moment later. The second that Starling shuts the door, Lounds looks at Jack and Jack cannot comprehend what on earth the woman has to feel so happy about.

“I was right.” Is all she says.

“Right about what, Miss Lounds?” She is still a complete and utter pest to the police and FBI, even though everyone is well acquainted with her by now. But he is prepared to listen to her today, if only to shut her down and send her on her way again. He’s in that kind of mood.

“Special Agent Graham and Dr Lecter.”

“What about them this time, Miss Lounds? That they decided to die together? That Hannibal kidnapped, killed or pushed Will? That they both lived? That they are both living in Europe? Which of your wild guesses is it today?”

“One with fool-proof evidence.” She drops a file in front of him, looking smug.

Jack levels her with a glare, and a dubiously raised eyebrow, and opens the file. Inside is a photograph. He stares at it.

Freddie crosses her arms and taps her boot irritatingly on the floor. “Well?”

“Where did this come from?” Jack asks, fingers tightening a bit around the edges of the paper.

“It was sent to me from one of my readers. A local newspaper from West Virginia. The point, is that this was taken at an opera house about a month ago in West Virginia. One month ago, Jack. You said I was milking the story for all it was worth, but I was right. And don’t try and tell me it isn’t them, because it is.”

Jack looks back at the photograph. The subject of the photo is a couple who look to be in their forties, well dressed and smiling, but it is what is behind them that has him flabbergasted.  In the background, to the right of the couple but in clear view, are two men. They stand close together; the taller man is blonde, with a very distinctively sharp bone structure in his face, the smaller has familiar brunet curls and glasses, but he stands with such composure and ease, that it does not look like the Will that Jack knew. The men are standing intimately close, like they are whispering to each other, or even have just broken from a kiss; the brunet’s hands rest on the other’s waist. There is enough of their faces on view and in focus that Jack cannot deny that these men are the doubles of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham, and yes, it could be them. But Jack is struggling to comprehend it.

It only takes a few hours to make enquiries and track down ‘Karl and Mark Andersen’. They find the house.

But Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham and whatever life they have built together are already long gone. Inevitable, really, knowing Lecter. But it was definitely them. They find evidence.

They find a body in the garden, lungs missing, and a note tucked inside the incision that says ‘ _the sea was harsh but we held our breath_ ’. The woman’s arms hold a camera, and she is pointing it towards two stone figurines that decorate the neat lawn, that stand intimately close together.

They also find a letter on the dining table, written in Hannibal Lecter’s unmistakeable elegant hand;

 

_Our apologies, Jack, that we have missed you. We had to leave in a bit of a hurry._

_Please help yourself to the meat we have had to leave in the kitchen. It would be a crime to let it go to waste._

_With our best wishes,_

_H.L & W.G_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this story is finally finished! Seeing as this fic began in a word document titled 'Hannibal ramblings', this turned out to be something a little more extensive than imagined! Please let me know if you enjoyed the story, it really is such wonderful encouragement, and I do have further ideas for the odd spin-off one-off chapters, so it would be great to hear! Thank you to everyone who who has read, commented, bookmarked and left kudos. You guys are the best, and keep me writing!
> 
> As mentioned in notes at the beginning of this fic, I have written a couple of fics that compliment this story. Two have already been written, though a further three are planned. In the Mentor Tormentor series you can also find 'Salt in the Wound', which is a precursor to this fic and focuses on how Hannibal and Will survive the fall, and also 'How the Fisherman Hunts' which is about Hannibal and Will's fourth hunt that I mentioned in Chapter 3 of this fic. They are not compulsory reads for this fic, but can be read in addition to it (or as standalones). If you do decide to read them, I hope you enjoy them!
> 
> Also. I miss Hannibal already. Can we have Season 4 now, please?


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